Time flies when you're unemployed...

It is almost July...did you know that?  Why didn't anyone tell me?  Once again I haven't written anything in weeks, but this time I have a series of perfectly valid excuses for my lack of updates....for one, my brother got married again to his beautiful wife, Hsiao-Han, this time in VT (where our family is) because last time it was in Taiwan (where her family is) and then there was a small one in NC (where they met and live) so they owed us a wedding, since everyone else got one.
I was in the bridal party, and I had a blast welcoming my sister-in-law to the family once again.  It was a beautiful ceremony up at Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe on a beautiful spring day with lots of friends and family and I don't think the day could have been more perfect!

Excuse number 2:  I PASSED THE FE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (And I was so excited when I got my little "You are now officially an engineer-in-training" certificate in the mail that I couldn't do anything but smile and jump up and down for days, and the jumping made typing difficult.)  I got myself a bottle of classy bubbly and toasted my new title (Shelby A. Perry, E.I.T.) with some good friends and had a "Shelabration!"  So hey, that's awesome....and makes me feel like I didn't just waste the last couple months of extensive studying....

Excuse number 3: I was unemployed.  I know typically that means that you have more time, but in my case it meant that I did more hiking than I have done in ages, volunteered a whole bunch with the Conservation Commission in Johnson, applied to the 2 or 3 jobs per week that I found interesting (I have the patience to be picky in my job hunt and I have decided that my happiness is worth it), and found new and interesting things to cook, bake, and create.  I put all that free time to good use until it wasn't all that free anymore, which is the way it should be.  Annnyyyywayyyy, all that being said, somewhere along the way all of that job applicating paid off, which brings me to excuse number 4:

I.  GOT.  A.  JOB.  About a week ago I got a call from one of the positions that I interviewed for and really really wanted, and guess what!?!?!  They wanted me too!  So now I'm hitting the road, actually in 3 days, for the mystical and exciting land of Wyoming!  That's right, I'm moving from the second least populated state in the country to the very least populated state in the country...raise your hand if you didn't see that coming...yeah...that's what I thought.  

Sooooooooooooooo as you can see my life has been quite busy lately, and is only going to get busier, as I pack up my life and move back into my Honda Civic for the 2000 mile trek out to Wyoming.  I am so incredibly excited (although I am quite sad to leave Johnson, which has grown on me lately) to start my new adventure!  Wish me luck and get excited!  As usual I have been baking up a storm, because packing is boring and I would rather feed my friends that pack my bags.  I have made a few repeats (these cookies and cream cheesecake cupcakes went over well with my friends here, I (of course) made truffles, and for my brother's stag party I repeated these Irish car bomb cake balls) and a few new ones, like a blueberry knotweed crumble for the conservation commission meeting and a (and this one is an original, wrote the recipe myself....) Maple Bacon Cheesecake that came out pretty okay if I do say so myself...the recipe is to follow.  Wish me luck on my new adventures, pictures from the road to come...  

Maple Bacon Cheesecake:

Crust:

about 4 cups graham cracker crumbs

bacon grease from half the bacon

a few tablespoons of butter (until you reach the right consistency)

Dash of maple syrup

about 2 pieces of maple bacon

Filling:

4 8oz packs plain cream cheese

1/2 c sour cream

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 c grade B maple syrup

Topping:

4-5 pieces maple bacon, cooked crispy

1-2 tbsp brown sugar

Combine crust ingredients in food processor and press in bottom of greased 9 in spring for pan.  Beat filling ingredients together until smooth, pour over crust and bake for 50 minutes at 350 degrees.  Remove baked cake from oven and let cool/set 10 minutes on a wire rack, filling will settle down into the pan.  Chop topping ingredients together in food processor until small bacon bits are evenly coated with sugar, sprinkle over cheesecake after it has cooled for 10 minutes.  Let the cake with topping cool in the hot (but off) oven for 1 hour, transfer to a wire rack until it is room temp, then cool in fridge over night if possible, but at least 4 hours.  

I don't have a picture of it being enjoyed because it was so delicious I literally could not stop to take one.  Sorry, maybe I'll make it again so you can see the end result.

This cake has balls!

Since my last post was a long winded rant, I figure it's time for a lighter, happier post about one of my favorite topics:  sweets.  In my adventures throughout the blogosphere I have started seeing cake balls all over the place.  I've seen a million recipes, and even purchased a gift box of them from Etsy.com to send to a friend in FL, but I've never had one and I've never made one, until now.

Today is a friend of mine's birthday so I decided to bake a cake, but then I found out someone else is already baking him a cake, and not one to be outdone, I decided to make sure my cake had balls...cake balls.  On St. Patty's day this year I made Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes to bring to a friends house, and so I had the better part of a bottle of Jameson and some Emmet's Irish Cream Liqueur still hanging around my house (I managed to take care of all of the Guiness without a problem though...) so I decided to continue with that theme and make Irish Car Bomb Cake Balls, but because this friend is an avid beer fan (and home-brewer) I decided to use a local brew instead of Guiness, and went with Rock Art's Stumpjumper Stout, which has a nice bold flavor that would stand up well in the dark chocolate cake.  Here's whats fun about cake balls:  It's like making a whole cake, but then you get to smoosh it!

I took the recipe from here but basically, I cheated and bought a boxed cake mix this time...making the process much easier and cheaper, but using the Stout in place of the water.  Bake that up in any shape or size you see fit, let it cool, and them smoosh the heck out of it!  Beat up a basic buttercream frosting, using the Jameson and Emmet's for flavoring, in place of vanilla (add to taste, about 3 tbsp Emmet's and 1 tbsp Jameson).  Add the cake crumbs to the frosting bowl and mix as you go, until well combined.  Scoop out onto cookie sheets in ~2 tbsp size balls and pop them in the freezer for awhile to harden up a bit (I left them in there over night).  Next melt up some chocolate to dip the frosty cake balls in, the recipe called for white, I did about half and half - one bag of white chocolate and one bag of dark covered the whole lot.  What an interesting treat they turned out to be!  I'm bringing them to the birthday party tonight, hopefully no one else will like them and I can bring them all back home.....just kidding!  :-)

Japanese Knotweed Pie!

On Saturday morning I attended an invasive weed talk about the unfortunate prevalence of the non-native invasive plant variety known as Japanese Knotweed.  I learned a few important things, first that this stuff is really nasty and tough to get rid of, seriously seriously persistent (complete removal can take up to and often more than 5 years of concentrated efforts) and second, that it is edible, has a flavor comparable to rhubarb, and makes a mean piece of pie.  So naturally I had two immediate reactions: First, I should sign up for a site to try to do my part, and get rid of some of this stuff.  And then second, and perhaps more obvious, I should make a pie.

So today, first I walked the site that I "adopted" and learned that this time, I might have bitten off a bit more than I can chew.  This stuff is everywhere man, well maybe not everywhere, but where it is, there is a lot of it, and it's well established.  I walked the rail trail in Johnson today, from Parker and Stearn's just to the ball park, and in that short strip I found 4 large and established patches of Knotweed.  After that I checked down the bank at the back of the ball field, where the bank slopes down to the Lamoille River, and there I found a Knotweed forest the stretched almost the entire length of the park.  I don't have ARCGIS but I ripped off a little scrap of satellite photo from google maps (so thank you google, and please don't sue me!) and made myself a map of my little infestation, to help me keep track of what needs to be done (and maybe to recruit some volunteers...anyone wanna help?) so here's my map, complete with photo points, because I'm a dork, and I love this kind of thing and I haven't had the fortune of using this side of my brain in a long time!

(Click to enlarge)

Photo point 1: Patch of dried up stalks of last years knotweed (and plenty of hard to see new babies) on the rail trail facing Railroad Street and Parker and Stearn's

Photo point 2: Another patch on the side of the rail trail overlooking the park

Photo point 3: Patch of knotweed on the side of the rail trail abutting a private property.

Photo point 4: Patch covering both sides of the rail trail at the entrance to the park

And this ones not on the map, but its the patch from the last photo continuing along the drainage ditch on the other side of the road.

And finally, photo point 5: The bottom of the bank.

So there's that whole depressing story, hopefully I can do my part to cut these guys down to size.  Now on to more positive topics: Pie!  After my reconnaissance mission, I collected a few of these frightening looking stalks to bring home and clean and make a pie!  I used this fabulous recipe from Yankee magazine, which I of course edited slightly because I can't leave anything alone.  I used about 2 cups of peeled, chopped, knotweed, 2 to 2.5 cups of sliced strawberries, and one peeled, cored, and chopped pink lady apple (because it added extra volume, cut down on the strawberry costs, and allowed me to cut out a bit of the sugar) and here is a collection of photos of the resulting pie:

 

  Yummm!

And the hardest part of making this whole pie: not throwing the scraps in the compost (remember, these little buggers are invasive, and they'll invade your compost heap too!)  The pie was delicious, not as tart as rhubarb, a not unpleasing texture (I was concerned because the uncooked knotweed had it's "slimy" moments).  All in all I'd say it was a success!  

For more information about the problems associated with invasive weeds and best management practices for their removal, check out the Nature Conservancy's information page for Knotweed or their section on all of the Invasive Plants in Vermont.  And finally, a more comprehensive pdf of all of the different invasive plant species in Vermont is available here for free download.

Dancing, Greening, and Baking on Mother's Day Weekend

This was a big weekend for me for many reasons.  It's Mother's Day and I'm a pretty big fan of my mom, so thats always a big deal, but it was also Vermont Green Up Day on Saturday and the JSC Dance Show on Friday.  This means that Friday I attended a dance show with some friends and then went out dancing to various live shows around town after (a band called "The Thang"  embarrassed me into holding still at the Hub so I headed out to Moog's in Mo'ville to watch Chad Hollister play solo-definitely worth the trip-where I danced my butt off).  Then on Saturday I spent my morning picking up garbage along the Rail Trail where I walk my dogs, scaling a steep hillside up towards the road to pick up old skoal cans, McDonald's wrappers, and to try to steer clear of at least this years bags of deer guts (at which I was mostly successful).  Saturday night I first made a triple layer chocolate cheesecake/mousse dessert for both my friend Holly and my mom for mother's day and then in the later hours I made spaghetti dinner and garlic bread for dinner followed my preparing my mom's mother day breakfast after she went to bed.  This consisted of maple walnut cinnamon buns from a recipe I found in a magazine and adapted to my needs.  Then on Sunday I finished up the cinnamon buns and sliced up some fresh fruit for a surprise breakfast for my mom that was ready just as she came downstairs in the morning.  The bun recipe was from a magazine but I'll post the cheesecake concoction recipe below, but first: Pictures.

Sunrise outside my window, I love the silhouettes of trees in the foreground

Instead of pictures of garbage from Green Up Day, you get pictures of things that are already green, because they're really what it's all for anyway....

I am in love with baby leaves.

Sunshine on new leaves...nothings better

Fiddleheads!

Baby fern

Morning Dew

Mother's day Breakfast!

Cheesecake concoction: I made this cheesecake, then covered it with ganache and topped it with this chocolate mousse...wasn't crazy about the cheesecake recipe but all in all I think it turned out alright. 

Then I made chocolate chip peanut butter cookies.  What a weekend!  Goodnight all! 

yeast breads, count downs, and heavy rain

I'm not feeling like myself lately, the anticipation of my big move, the rather sudden (and flood induced) end of my previous job, and my tight finances are causing a shortness of temper and bouts of negativity that I am rather uncomfortable with.  I see it happening and so I am looking for ways to control it, deep breathing, long walks, lots of "me" time.  These things help; they're great actually, but inevitably something will trigger a new frustration: my dogs barking over and over again because of the roadwork happening outside (the same beeps and thumps and scrapes happen again and again and every time they go off as though there is an army at the gates); feeling the financial pinch and trying to decide if i can pay my student loans, car insurance, fill my gas tank, attend any of the weddings that are happening this summer, and still be able to eat; making important medical decisions (rushing around to get cavities filled, new contacts, and fill my prescriptions before my departure date); learning my phone won't work at my new home but also that I can only suspend my service for 3 months at a time, meaning sometime in the middle of my stay I will have to re-suspend it, somehow, since I won't have a phone.  These things make my heart pitter-patter, make my brow furrow, and my mood darken in a way that only bread making can cure.

As you may or may not know, I have been dabbling in the art of yeast bread baking as of late.  I am enjoying it immensely, although the results started out inconsistent at best, practice has helped.  I have found a whole wheat bread recipe that I adore and have edited it until I started getting more consistently pleasing results, and have begun baking two to four small loaves a week for my family and to give as gifts.  Yesterday I felt the need to expand my horizons and, adapting a recipe from the January 2009 issue of Vegetarian Times for Whole Wheat Honey-Walnut bread, I created my favorite bread that I have baked to date.  I call it Maple Walnut Swirl Bread and it is of course whole wheat (because thats the only kind of flour I buy).  This recipe results in cute little loaves that make terrific gifts and yummy breakfast toast.  Here it is:

For the bread:
1 c Maple Syrup
1 1/2 tbsp dry active yeast
2 c warm water (~90 degrees F)
1 stick melted butter
2 tbsp salt
5-6 c whole wheat flour
1 c walnuts, chopped

For the swirl:
3 tbsp maple syrup
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp melted butter

1. Dissolve the yeast into the warm water and add the maple syrup.  Let sit for 10 minutes, until yeast foams at the surface.  Stir in melted butter and salt.
2. Begin adding flour one cup at a time until dough forms a ball.  Turn out dough onto well floured surface and knead, adding additional flour until dough no longer sticks to hands.  Knead for a total of about 15 minutes.
3. Knead in walnuts until evenly distributed.  Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with oiled plastic wrap or a damp towel and leave in a warm place to rise for 1 hour.
4. When dough has doubled in size punch it down and let it rise again.  When dough has doubled in size again (about another hour) remove from bowl to a clean lightly floured surface and break up into three chunks.
5. Flatten the chunks into tapered triangular shapes so that one end is about as wide as your loaf pan and the other is about half that width.  In another bowl mix together the swirl ingredients until they for a lump paste and brush it onto the tops of the triangles.
6. Roll the triangles up around the sugar mixture, starting with the narrow portion and ending on the thicker side.  Pinch the ends together and place resulting roll into lightly oiled small loaf pan.
7. Cover and let rise for about another 45 minutes, until slightly less than doubled.  Bake in preheated oven at 400 F for 35 - 40 minutes for three small loaves, or 45 - 50 minutes for 2 medium loaves.
8. Let cool for at least 20 minutes before cutting.  Enjoy!

Yummmmmmy. 

So this is the bread that saved me from my foul mood yesterday, and today this bread is helping me ignore the rain and the barking dogs and the road construction and all of my money woes and all of my doctors appointments and everything.  This bread is reminding me that someday I'll have my own bakery and will have my hands in bread dough all the time.  So thanks to this bread, I'm going to go do some yoga and take a nap, maybe cuddle with my barking dogs, read a book, and drink some tea; this bread just looks like everything is going to be alright.  

Bread and Amazingness!

Today was a great day.  I woke up before my alarm to a swiftly darkening sky followed shortly by an epic thunderstorm and torrential downpour.  The snow is mostly gone, the world smells like the wonderful smell of spring in Vermont, that wonderfully earthy smell of rain and mud and changing seasons.  I had a strawberry banana smoothie for breakfast and then got started on the days baking challenge: whole wheat bread with milled flax seed.

Now theres something excellent about making your own bread, and if you've never done it I suggest you try at least once or twice.  Baking bread is so relaxing, its a fabulous contrast to say, cooking dinner for 3.  Dinner usually involves multiple skillets and 3 to 10 things happening at once - add the butter, sprinkle with salt, turn the heat down on that one, thats too think now, thin it out, the meats not cooked through, etc. - whereas baking bread is downright leisurely.  This particular wheat bread involved scalding milk and then stirring in butter, honey, and salt in a saucepan, then waiting for it to cool.  Mix the yeast with warm water and then wait a few minutes for it to activate.  Add the yeast to the cooled milk mixture and then add milled flax and flour until the dough reaches the correct consistency and then knead for 10 minutes or so.  Kneading in itself is very therapeutic, watching and feeling the dough become elastic and waiting until it just feels right.  Then place in a buttered bowl, flip it over so its buttered on all sides, cover with a towel and let rise for an hour in a warm place.  See what I mean by relaxing?  Bread baking comes with a built in nap, this particular recipe even called for two - after it was risen punch it down and let it rise again.

I used my built in recipe break to take the doggies for a walk in the freshly washed world.  Rushing water provided the soundtrack to our trek through the woods and the sun even graced us with its presence for a few glorious minutes.  Too soon though our walk was over and it was time to punch down the bread dough.  This has to be one of the all-time greatest bread-making moments - go ahead, bury your fist in a bowl of warm bread dough and watch it deflate and try not to smile.  I wager that it cannot be done.  Anyway next comes more rising, another hour; another built in break.  I read The Mountain Ear, a local arts and culture magazine, and then attempted some sudoku during this one.  Next you knead the dough some more and then separate it into loaves, and set it on an oiled pan for more rising, this time only about 30 to 45 minutes.  When the loaves have almost doubled pop them in the oven at 375 for 45 minutes and thats it.  You have bread.  There is nothing frantic about that recipe, in fact you almost have to be utterly chill to get through it, because if you are in any hurry at all bread-making is the wrong activity choice.  Just bake a batch of cookies, they are far more instant gratification, but way less gratifying.  Here is my pride and joy, my wonderful, tasty, fabulous bread:

This is by far the best loaf I've made to date; I think it was all the happy thoughts I kneaded into it!  Anyway after I finished the bread my Momma came home early and we had lunch and then did some shopping.  When we got home that evening I started right in on dinner.  Tonight was calzones.  I made some whole wheat pizza crust from this recipe (subbing whole wheat flour for white) and  while it rested a bit I chopped up a wide array of fixin's and then set up the dough into 3 little calzone shaped rounds on the pizza stone.  Everyone made their own then we closed the dough around them, wrapped them loosely in tinfoil, and baked at 375 for 30 minutes, removing the tinfoil for the last 5.  While they baked I warmed some dipping sauce and set the table.  They were done just in time and heres the result:

Calzone fixin's: fresh mozz, basil, orange bell pepper, chicken, mushrooms, sharp cheddar, olives, shredded Italian 4 cheese mixture, and sundried tomatoes

Super easy, super delicious, and way wayyy healthier than take-out calzones.  

After dinner I felt like I had maybe over indulged just a bit and the lump of calzone was sitting heavily in my belly so my Pops and I decided to take a walk down to the falls to check out the roaring Lamoille River after this mornings rain and warm temperatures.  The walk was just what I needed at the end of a lovely and relaxing day.  I love to feel just pleasantly tuckered out at the end of the day, especially when it is the result of baking bread and dog walking and not work.  On that note I shall leave you with one final shot of the engorged Lamoille.  Good night!

cook-bookin

I am in the process of reading the book Julie and Julia by Julie Powell - you know the one, girl starts blog chronicling her adventures cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child and it eventually is made into a book and then a movie.  I got the book for Christmas from my mom a few years back in the gift pack (meaning the novel came shrink wrapped to the cookbook that inspired it) just a few days after I saw the movie.  Now I have to say, I found the movie to be...well disappointing; that is why I sort of subconsciously put off reading the book for so long.  I have always found books to be better than movies but that movie just didn't strike me as something I would want to put the time it takes to read 359 pages into.   I've been meaning to, because I mean to read every book that I receive as a gift, but I hadn't gotten around to it until now.  The cookbook, sadly, has scarcely seen any action either.  It inspired my French-themed potluck very early in the Tahoe-Potluck days (which failed miserably by the way, not that it wasn't a blast, but the theme was butchered with no one except for me all that interested in French cooking we ended up with about 5 loaves of French bread, 3 cheese platters, some Pilsbury crescent rolls, and even some French Fries - arguably the least French thing there, even with their very "Frenchy" name - on the menu) and since that fateful potluck I have done little more that cart it back across the country and stick it back in the pile with all of my other cookbooks to be forgotten when I arrived home and had all of my mothers vast (compared to mine at least...) collection of cookbooks to play with.  

At any rate that brings us to now, I am only 93 pages into the novel and already I am dying to share two things - one, that I now want to cook my way through Julia Child's cookbook and two, that this book is miles better than the movie with more likeable characters, sillier narration, and a whole lot of humor that was completely lacking in the movie.  Julie explains where her obsession with Julia started (something to do with the resemblance of Mastering the Art of French Cooking to the copy of The Joy of Sex she discovered hidden in her home as an adolescent) and how finishing her cooking project had more to do with her stubborn-ness than a real commitment to the cause, giving background stories that make me like her a whole lot more than I like the Julie character in the movie.  I understand her a little better now I guess, her silly crass jokes and self-deprecating humor make her a little more relate-able to me than the whiny little woman of the movie who couldn't seem to get through a single recipe without an emotional breakdown and had none of the wit and smart-ass-y-ness that I am finding to be characteristic of the woman in the book.  

Ok, I'm making up words so I think its time for me to change subject; I'll share pictures and recipes from the book when I try them but this week I have been cooking recipes that I had saved before I started reading it.  The first was recommended by my grandmother who saw it on PBS, made it once and lost the recipe.  Through the glories of the internet I found a recipe, potentially even the same one, for artichoke chicken from a PBS cooking show and printed it out to give to my grams (who was very suprised - I guess she had assumed I would forget - oh ye of little faith!).  I had to sample it of course so I made it for the family tonight and I quite enjoyed it.  The recipe is posted here but I took a few liberties with it, as usual.  First I used a boxed couscous that came pre-seasoned and took only 5 minutes to make.  Easy, delicious, and made up for the fact that I had already thrown out the wilted shallot greens that were supposed to be tossed into the couscous had I made it plain.  Next, I used bagged, dry sundried tomatoes (about $2.99) instead of the kind bottled in oil as the recipe calls for (about $6.99) and let them soak in olive oil that I already had for 2 days before I used them.  Finally I didn't measure anything and made the recipe to serve 4 instead of 1.  I was starving when it was done and it smelled so good I just wanted to dig in so the photos might have been a little rushed, with not much attention to detail, but here's what it looked like:

Now if you'll excuse me I have to get back to my book about some crazy girl with a blog about cooking.  seriously who does that?

April Fools.

As a cruel April fools joke on us all the powers that be have caused a small spring snow storm to white out all of the wonderful dirty-ness of spring on April first here in Northern Vermont and I'm not what you might call thrilled.  April is about warm rains, mud puddles, and my doggies finally being able to play in the river again without fear of being swept away under ice.  Snow is not included, nor is it welcome, in that description.  In an effort to cheer myself up in the few remaining hours before I have to go to work and sort sale tags for 5 hours I have decided to visit my favorite website and make a list of some new recipes to try for spring.  Recently I have been in a chocolate chip cookie rut, baking a batch every week or so with a few different recipes but always fairly consistent results.  Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with chocolate chip cookies, but I feel that it's time for a bit of a change.  Last week I went for oatmeal cookies using an old fashioned cranberry oatmeal cookie recipe from one of my mothers cranberry cookbooks and I was VERY disappointed.   My cookies came out way too cakey for my liking, not nearly chewy enough, annnddd the first batch cooked faster than anticipated and set off our mind-blowingly annoying smoke detector system when the bottoms got only ever so slightly burned.

No pictures of those because they were a great disappointment for me.

The day before yesterday I set about making cookies to bring to lunch with my Grandma and again, in an effort to stray from my chocolate chip cookie rut, I attempted a new recipe.  This time butter cookies with a thumb-print full of blackberry jam or chocolate in the center.  These came from an old Betty Crocker cookbook and turned out much better, but still not as satisfying as I might have hoped.  Pictures below, but no recipe because to be honest, they just weren't that special.

Now onward, to new and exciting things.  I have realized that I am going to need to work a little harder to get out of my plain old chocolate chip cookie rut and so I will be branching out much further than simply other varieties of cookies.  The possibilities are endless, but here are some of my favorites thus far:

Peabody's Really Bad Day Fix-It-All Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake - A new and cheesier way to enjoy chocolate chip cookies!
Homemade Samoas - Yep, thats right, make your own Girl Scout Cookies.  I'm there.  Samoa's are my favorite so naturally making my own is the next logical step...unless I decide to make these instead:
Samoa Truffles - So everyone knows I love truffles.  Love to make them, love to share them, love to eat them myself, play with new flavors, coatings, fillings.  Samoa truffles?  Yep, this is definitely going to have to happen.
Cinnamon Raisin Brown Rice Pudding - This just looked all warm and delicious and it is snowing out so naturally warm cinnamony-raisin things would have to make the list.
Bri's Sweet Pretzel Cookies - A super twist on traditional chocolate chip cookies, these pretzel and berry and chocolate chip cookies look to be anything but boring.  Still in the cookie comfort zone, but with all kinds of new flavors.  I'm intrigued...

So there you have it, my "I spent 5 minutes on tastespotting and already have more recipes than I could possibly need so I have to stop now before this gets out of hand" baking wish list.  Now if only I could find people to share with...

Eventually I will most likely try them all but if anyone has a preference for which one I should try first, like if you're planning on stopping by my house and would like to find some Samoa Truffles all ready for you, just let me know.  I would be happy to take requests.

There, that brightened up my April Fool's Day!

updates and pictures of food...

I feel like I need to update this because I have been terrible at it lately but I have little to report.  I guess I'll give you a few cursory updates and then some pictures of food.

Final plane tickets have been purchased, I head to Florida on May 14th and then onward to St. Thomas by way of Puerto Rico on the 17th.  I am so absolutely excited that its not even funny.  I'm moving to a tropical paradise and I'm going to enjoy every minute of it to the fullest!  Many pictures will be posted when I get there.  Its going to be amazinggggg.  Just you wait.  Other than that I have mostly just been working (I got "promoted" to sale tag person) at the grocery store and cooking (at least one meal a week for my parents, I'm missing my potlucks, so I'm happy to have some fabulous people to cook for here!).  I work 5 days a week, but only get between 20 and 30 hours, which is probably all I could handle there anyway.  I'm thinking about picking up with my old trail riding gig in Stowe when they re-open in April too.  That would mean working 7 days/week but I think it would be good to put away some cash before I move, plus at least one of the jobs I truly do enjoy.

There is one other thing that I'm really excited about, of course it doesn't really apply to anyone but me but I'm still excited so I'll share.  On Thursday I am meeting with a quilter to talk about making some of my clothes and left over fabric from Africa into a quilt - a magical quilt of memories!  I am really excited, I'm pretty sure I'm going to cherish it forever and ever and ever.  Sooo surely some photos will follow if the project comes together, only time will tell.  Anyway enough about me, here are some pictures of food:

My mini dinner plate sized three layer chocolate devils food birthday cake.

Three cheese bacon mushroom quiche; I would give you the recipe but I completely made it up based on what was in the fridge.  Couldn't make it again if I wanted to...

homemade chunky broccoli cheddar soup with fresh (but sadly store-bought) sourdough

The soup - all up close and personal.  Made of course with Cabot Seriously Sharp White Cheddar.  Made with this recipe, except that I skipped the puree part and left it chunky and I used about 2 extra cups of shredded cheese, because I love it.  

Just a beautiful view from an evening walk with Papa and the pooches

Homemade Mediterranean olive bread, served with greek salad and this pasta dish that are not pictured

Emeril's Chicken Marsala (sort of, I may have done some editing - mostly I just made extra sauce and instead of finishing the chicken in the pan with the sauce I transferred it to a crock pot and simmered the whole thing with extra broth for about 3 hours so that the chicken was falling apart moist and delicious and the sauce was this and creamy) served with salad and whole grain bread.

And naturally no post would be complete without a pic of my beautiful doggy.  My favorite snuggle-bug; I'm going to miss her terribly when I leave her AGAIN to head for Saint Thomas.  I hope she can find it in her heart to forgive me, but of course she will because thats what dogs are all about.  

That's about all I've got, I've also made chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, onion and cheese bread, coffee cake, banana trail mix muffins, homemade hearty new england clam chowder, guiness beef stew and leak and cheese casserole (for St. Patty's Day), and probably a few other things that I was too hungry to take a picture of before I ate them.  I'll try to be a better updater and a better photographer with my culinary exploits in the future.  

sunrises and triple chocolate tiramisu

Life moves fast, and i'll be out of here before i know if, so I'm trying to get out of the house a little more and enjoy myself while i'm still in Tahoe.  In that spirit, Matt and I got up and watched the sunrise again today, this time from emerald bay (the same place i went to this summer when i watched the sunrise with Reyna).  Below are some pictures from this morning and it is followed by the photos of the tiramisu that I made for italian night potluck last night with the recipe.  Enjoy!

taken with old reliable - my canon point and shoot

taken with new and exciting - my pentax dslr

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Triple Chocolate Tiramisu

made from the recipe here, except garnished with shave white and dark chocolate instead of unsweetened cocoa powder, I also used chocolate covered coffee beans when I served it, but theres no picture of that.

Start by lining the bottom of an 8x8x2 in pan with lady fingers and then drizzle with coffee or espresso:

Next combine heavy cream, mascarpone, sugar, vanilla, and chocolate liqueur and beat until it forms stiff peaks:

 

then spread half of it over the lady fingers in the dish:

next sprinkle it with white and dark chocolate shavings:

another layer of lady fingers:

more coffee:

Then the rest of the cream mixture followed by some more chocolate, cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hrs:

Then enjoy!  it came out pretty delicious, and was much simpler than i had anticipated to make.  Some tips:  I bought the lady fingers, piping and baking them was too much work for me.  To find lady fingers at the grocery store ask at the bakery counter, they had them in the freezer and had to go back and get them for me.  Also, mascarpone cheese is much harder to find than i had anticipated.  Call around and figure out who has it before you start shopping so you don't have to do what I did and go on a three grocery store long epic grocery voyage to find it.  I eventually found it at a Raley's, not with the other cheeses in the cheese case or near the ricotta, cream cheese, or cottage cheese but by all the fresh salsa's and dips in one of the other refrigerator cases...of course that could just be Raley's because pretty much that whole store makes no sense to anyone who grew up with east coast grocery stores that have logical order.  Also, if you can't find mascarpone then there are a few substitutions that i've heard work.  I stopped at home to look one up on my way to the third grocery store on my epic voyage so that if I could not find it then i could at least buy a viable substitute, this is the one I picked: 8 oz of softened cream cheese, plus 3 tablespoons of sour cream, plus 2 tablespoons of heavy cream (liquid, not whipped)

give it a try, let me know how it goes.

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