French macrons
Posted on May 15th, 2012 by Dan
Ever since visiting France last summer, I have been in dessert envy for macarons. Those things litter the street side stores in every color imaginable. They’re such a prominent window display, that you’d think the French are born knowing how to make them.
I had a proud day last week. I finally achieved a vegan macaron. It wasn’t perfect, but to me, getting this to work was 90% looking the part, which I am pretty happy about.
This was the first of multiple attempts to make macarons. Previous experiments left me with a sticky, gooey mess all over the pan as the cookies melted out in the oven. This time, though, I gave them a good rest to form a ‘skin’, and to my excitement and shock, my little cookies stayed firm and grew little feet.
My recipe was an alteration from Bittersweet’s ‘Vegan Desserts‘. Her method for the egg white wasn’t working for me, so I used another egg white substitution, Willpowder’s VersaWhip. And somehow, it all worked out.
I made a chocolate mint and chocolate peanut butter. I obviously didn’t take as much care with the frosting application- they’re a little sloppy. I need to practice piping the cookie batter onto the sheet pans and applying the frosting, but the hard shell and feet are a big enough accomplishment for one week.
I promise I’ll post tips once I get a truly successful batch. I can not wait to give them another try and perfect my VEGAN FRENCH MACARONS.
Sourdough Adventures II
Posted on May 11th, 2012 by DanI’ve made a few more batches with my sourdough starter since my first successful loaf. However, these baguette-bâtard mutants are notably blogworthy.
I’m still trying to get a feel for how to make great sourdough. I still haven’t been able to get a really sour taste, and on my last dough, the starter ‘over ripened’ and degraded the gluten, causing a dough that fell apart instead of stretched. Luckily that dough was destined for pizza and I could roll it out and salvage it. My second sourdough loaf had perfect gluten development, but again, little sour flavor (recipe link from Sourdough Adventures I).
I love spring!
Posted on May 6th, 2012 by Susanna
Little Joe
Posted on April 20th, 2012 by SusannaOur lovely little yellow orchid has started to bloom again, it’s a Dendrobium yellow chinsai ‘Little Joe’ that we got from the Orchid Show last year.
Closet Desk
Posted on April 16th, 2012 by SusannaWe had a lot of wallpaper to tackle when we first moved in. It was in the whole basement and all the closets. It was a disaster. We tried every single method possible, and they all failed, until my co-worker let us borrow her steamer and boy was it a miracle. It was still hard work, but we knocked it out in just a few days, where as it would have taken years at the rate we were going with all those other methods (fabric softener, store bought sprays, perforators, etc). And thanks to all of you family and friends that helped with the removal process!
After we took the door off of the closet I was inspired to make a desk in this huge space. Since we have no plans of using the room as a bedroom and Dan is basically constantly using his desk, I figured it would be a nice place to store craft stuff and have a place for schoolwork (which usually gets done on the floor). After making a whole Pinterest Board dedicated to closet desks we set to work.
We decided to use the go-to walnut wood that my parents have. Same wood that I used to make Dan’s bread board, and many other projects… We pieced a few planks together and sanded it nice and smooth.
And then we made the bases/shelves from some discounted reject wood from home depot.
There is much left to do, we plan on adding some shelves at the bottom left, so I can organize my piles of fabric scraps and various craft stuff, and create some storage above the desk. I’d also like to find both of us proper desk chairs since we’ve been using our dining room chairs. Lots left to do.
Kitchen Improvements
Posted on April 7th, 2012 by Susanna
As much as we wanted to make a terrarium in our huge empty fishtank, we decided we didn’t want to give up valuable window space for it. Since it was a real eyesore in the kitchen, we finally put it in the basement (for now). This left a big, empty wall that I had plans for. In less than 2 hours, we whipped up this bulletin board to fill up the space and give us a place to have photos, wedding invitations and other pretty things to look at. Here’s how we did it: First I found the biggest cardboard box from my collection in the basement (I’m a hoarder) and cut out one of the sides. Then we made a wooden frame from a hunk of wood we had in the basement (hoarder). We stapled the frame to the cardboard with a staple gun and then wrapped it with some white batting-like felt that I had bought as a remnant a while ago just because I knew I’d need it some day (hoarder), and then a piece of burlapy fabric that I did go to the store and buy real quick. The yard of fabric was the only purchased item for this project. It pays to be a hoarder. With two nails in the wall, we hung it up and started pinning things.
The second improvement to the clutter corner in our kitchen was covering the faux wood pattern on the end of the cabinet with beadboard like we had planned to do years ago, and painted it. FINALLY!
We still have to add some trim across the bottom and minor things that like.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups
Posted on April 4th, 2012 by DanYesterday was the first grass cutting of the year… awful. Our grass was clumpy and thick, which makes cutting it with a push-blade mower near impossible. Afterwards, I was craving some chocolate and peanut butter.
These peanut butter cups were easy to make and relatively quick.
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups chocolate chips, finely chopped
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp smooth peanut butter
- 10 tbsp smooth peanut butter
- 1/4 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 1/2 cup puffed rice
- 1/8 tsp salt (if using unsalted peanut butter)
- 1 tbsp oil, preferably peanut oil
- Heavily oil the inside of a muffin tin, but not so it’s dripping
- Melt the chocolate, salt and peanut butter in a double boiler until smooth
- Pour ~1/2 tbsp of chocolate in each muffin mold, just enough to cover the bottom
- Refrigerate or put in the freezer until hard (about 15 minutes)
- Combine the remaining ingredients in a food processor (except for the oil) until well combined
- With the food processor running, slowly drip in the oil until the mixture clumps and sticks together
- Take the chocolate out of the fridge, roll 1 tbsp of the peanut butter mixture into a ball, flatten in a 1/4″ disc and place in the center of each muffin mold.
- Cover with the rest of the melted chocolate, tap on the counter to flatten out and then refrigerate or freeze until solid (about 30 minutes).
- To de-mold, simply flip the muffin tin upside-down onto the counter and tap the bottom.
Sourdough Adventures I
Posted on March 28th, 2012 by DanWith my successful sourdough starter, I couldn’t wait to try it out. I decided to re-create my favorite bread flavor combination, one from a cafe where I used to work- a sourdough cranberry pecan.
The taste overall was delicious, toasted pecans and plump cranberries. The bread wasn’t very ‘sour’, but I think that’s because my starter is so new. Also, since I was in a rush, I didn’t let the bread rest the full 4 hours, so that took away from some flavor development too. I used this recipe for guidance from Allrecipes. Some suggestions:
- I used about 3/4 of the cranberries called for.
- Incorporating the dough with the starter was a big pain, I’d suggest combining the starter with the flour, water and salt at the start.
- I baked my bread in a dutch oven at 450°F for 20 minutes covered, then another 10 minutes uncovered, until the inside of the bread hit between 190-200°F.
I’m already getting ready to start baking another bread, this time with a 3 day cold ferment process, so it should be full of flavor. The recipe I’ll be trying out this weekend is from Ovenmitts blog.
Seeds and Weeds
Posted on March 25th, 2012 by Susanna
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This past weekend we finally got around to tending to the garden. Last weekend I had started a bunch of seeds, ones we had from last year (and perhaps the year before, and also I had a little seed trade at work so I got some interesting things from a coworker). It’s so warm it may as well be May so I figured we could start seeds outside in our greenhouse. We started lots of seeds from 2006 so I don’t know how successful they will be, but already in a week we’ve had spinach, beets, kale, okra,chard and lettuce babies pop up!
Sourdough Starter
Posted on March 22nd, 2012 by DanIt’s alive! I’m very excited to have successfully developed my very own sourdough starter! I haven’t baked with it yet, but it’s doubling in size every 12 hours, so it’s ready.
The first bread I want to make with it is a white cranberry pecan, reminiscent of a delicious bread from a cafe where I used to work.
This is actually the second try at a starter. The first one failed miserably when I tried it a month or so ago. Spring came quickly this year and a switch from 40° days to over 60° days made all the difference in the world for my starter. Not to mention, my first attempt was ultimately destroyed but a curious cat- Michi knocked it over and left her dough stained paw prints all over the table…
Never the less, I’m excited to begin my own sourdough adventure. I followed the steps from Pinch My Salt, if you’d too like to follow along. Also, I need to divide this every week or so, so if you’re interested in starting your won (and live nearby), I’ll give you some of mine.