i've seen some things

Scenes From A NJ Road Trip

2012-03-12T10:02:00.000-04:00

Last week we took a trip out to New Jersey to visit our families. Despite some bad news that put a slight damper on the day, we had a delicious lunch with my parents and siblings and then visited Shawn's mom at her equally delicious workplace. Our families treat us so well when we visit... sesame chicken salad for lunch, a homemade pear & chocolate tart for dessert, and a bag of locally roasted coffee? How come we don't visit more often?!

I'm pretty sure everyone who reads this blog is either family or friend and already knows this, but just in case I'm wrong, here's a small tidbit of information that I haven't mentioned before... over the next few months my family is gradually moving to Switzerland for a few years (and leaving Shawn and I behind, those bastards!). They're taking the dogs and the cats with them too, and since the dogs are scheduled to fly out next week, this was our last chance to see them for a while. Not that I don't love seeing my family too, but I know they'll be able to travel back to visit more often than the dogs will.

Shawn and the dogs have a special relationship - he used to housesit them when my family would go on vacation - in fact, I think they're usually happier to see him than they are to see me!

Check out that bear face. (It's no wonder we call him a big bear...) Kusko was growling right before these were taken, but don't mistake that for unhappiness - his smile will tell you otherwise. Malamutes make such interesting noises!

Shawn loves Luna, Luna loves Shawn.

I caught a Luna smile on camera! It's nearly impossible!

.....

And, on a completely different note, here's another photo from that day...

Shawn wears a beanie pretty much all the time, so whenever he takes it off his hair tends to be a crazy mess of Kramer hair. After arriving home from our road trip though it looked more like Ace Ventura hair, so he had me snap a photo.

Between the three of them, this turned out to be a very hairy post indeed.

Some Squirrels For Your Sunday

2012-03-11T16:34:00.000-04:00

The weather has been getting warmer lately, and you know what that means...

Shawn spotted this guy a few days ago. He's so little! What an adorable face.

T-Rex said it

2012-03-07T13:38:00.004-05:00

For Christmas Shawn got me these dinosaur post-its from Topatoco, since I love dinosaurs and I use a lot of post-its. Since then, we've been using them to write down some of the random things I say during our various conversations. We don't even remember what context some of these were said in, but regardless, it's a heck of a lot funnier when T-Rex says it.

I say the weirdest things sometimes.

Also, I thought I'd join Rebecca's Little Facts link-up this week, since I always enjoy reading other folk's Little Facts. "Little Facts are 3 short, factual statements about yourself. It's basically a very simple link-up so we can learn more about each other."
Pet Peeve: As a person who has worked many a register, it really bothers me when people hand over crumpled or folded bills. It shows a general lack of respect for themselves and towards the person they're handing money to. I keep my wallet organized by dollar value and always hand over crisp bills.

Food: I always start my day off with a bowl of cereal. My favorites are - Frosted Flakes, Honey Nut Cheerios, and Mini Wheats.

Guaranteed happy: Seeing people walking their dogs. I can't help but squeal "Puppy!" every.single.time.

Fun Finds Friday #5

2012-03-02T18:35:00.000-05:00

Not much going on this week, hence the lack of posts.
Here are a few fun internet finds from the last two weeks.

This is ingenious - it's a tote bag that turns into an apron. Perfect for dinner parties!
via

These photos are from a project called Switcheroo, started by a photographer in Vancouver. Couples switch clothes and pose for shots. Some of the photos are pretty hilarious.
via

...Is it so wrong that we really want this welcome mat?
via

Thirty One Bits is a socially minded business that sells paper bead jewelry handcrafted by women in Uganda. Their selection of necklaces and bracelets is simply beautiful, and of course, I'm a fan of any organization that helps out people in need.

Have a fantastic weekend!

Dinner at Tria

2012-02-27T12:12:00.001-05:00

On Sunday, three fantastic friends came to visit and we all enjoyed a particularly tasty meal at Philadelphia's Tria: a wine, cheese, and beer cafe. Sunday is a great day to go because they have their "Sunday School" specials - showcasing one wine, one cheese, and one beer all at half price. We each started the meal off with a drink (wine for the ladies, beer for Ryan) and then went through the menu from there. Here's a look at what we ate (photos courtesy of my friend Amy, since I still feel awkward snapping photos in restaurants):

We all shared the appetizers and cheeses, then each ordered salads or sandwiches to finish off the meal, and left the restaurant feeling stuffed, in a very satisfying way. (Want specifics? I ordered the Chateau Musar white wine, the lamb sausage, the Hooligan cheese, St. Feuillien Triple Belgian beer, and the beet & goat cheese salad.) I definitely recommend stopping by Tria if you're ever in the Philly area - the atmosphere was comfortable and the staff was quirky and super knowledgeable. We also had the pleasure of sitting at the bar where we could watch them put the food together right in front of us.

That's what's good in the neighborhood!

Mid-Week Weekend

2012-02-24T14:12:00.000-05:00

This week, Thursday was our weekend - aka, our day off together. Since we usually only get one day off together per week (if we're lucky), we try to make the most of it. Yesterday was one of those days.

I started the day off the best way that I know how - by making cookies! Shawn sometimes brings me home some leftover peanut butter chips and mini m&ms from work, so I tossed those into the batter this time, along with some oats. Lately, I've been straying from my tried-and-true chocolate chip cookie recipe and switching up various elements of it to see how it changes the outcome. This time I used a mix of bread flour and all-purpose flour, since I've heard that makes for chewier cookies. I also like to change the ratio of brown sugar to white sugar, also for chewier cookies. The addition of oats tends to make the cookies not spread as much, so that's why these look so tiny!

After the cookies came out of the oven, we walked down to our local movie theatre (it's less than half a mile up the road - how awesome is that?!) and saw our first movie in over three years: The Secret World of Arrietty. I'm glad it was just as beautiful as expected because it would have been a huge disappointment to break our three year no-theatre streak for a bad movie. We're both big fans of Miyazaki's animated films and this one definitely didn't disappoint.

Aside from the movie though, the highlight of yesterday was that I made my very first hard crusted bread loaf! A few weeks ago my mother found me this beautiful Le Creuset dutch oven that was just dying to have a loaf of bread baked in it. Well, Mom, I finally used it!

One of my favorite bakers/bloggers, Joy The Baker, posted a recipe for Spicy Garlic Bread and it looked and sounded far too good, so of course I just had to make it. Here's (some of) what goes into a spicy garlic loaf:

My loaf didn't turn out quite as pretty as hers, but dammit, it was just as tasty as I was hoping it would be! Also, I don't think it looks too bad for a first attempt! I just have to work on my smoothing & kneading skills... also, the loaf explodes in the oven! Look at how much bigger it is coming out than it was going in! (I'm sorry if that just sounds like a terrible dirty joke - keep it clean, folks!)

We enjoyed it with a chicken caesar salad for dinner (homemade bread and homemade dressing, that's just how we roll). There's nothing better than a simple meal with lots of garlic and fresh herbs and greens. At this rate, we could open up our own restaurant soon! ;)

...now for something completely different, here's a peek at what we had for dinner Wednesday night:

Tasty tasty burgers. But not just any burgers; these had cheese and onions sprinkled throughout. We're fancy like that; you should know this by now! Also, I seriously can't wait until we have a grill. Burgers on the stovetop just don't compare.

Have an amazing weekend!

PS. I want to say a big thank you to everyone who left me feedback on the sandals post. It was much appreciated. The general consensus were the Merrell Hennas, which as much as I love, I'm going to hold off on buying for now. I just can't fathom spending that much on sandals, no matter how amazing they are. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they go on sale some time over the next few months. In the mean time, my mom actually found the Simple sandals in purple on another website. I think those can hold me over until the Merrells go on sale :)

Help! I Can't Decide!

2012-02-22T07:57:00.002-05:00

With warmer weather just around the corner, and the ever-expanding amount of skirts in my closet, I'm on the market for some new sandals. I love the comfort of my Birkenstocks but I'd like to find a just-as-comfy pair of sandals that are slightly less... hippie-esque. I've been doing a little online shopping but I'm a terrible decision maker and just can't choose between these:

1. Merrell Henna
2. Merrell Barefoot Spirit Wrap
3. Big Buddha Kind
4. Simple Teetoe
I really like the bold print on the Big Buddha sandals but I feel as though it might be a bit much for every-day wear. Plus, I'm not familiar with the brand so I don't know how comfortable/supportive they are.

Simple, on the other hand, is my favorite brand for sneakers so I can only imagine the sandals are just as comfortable; I'm just not sold on the particular style ~~(they only have white left)~~. Scratch that. Apparently they've sold out since I wrote this post on Saturday....

My favorites from the bunch are the Merrell sandals. My only hesitations are that - 1. I can't decide between the two, and 2. they're much more expensive. I do realize that although it's a lot of money up front, Merrell shoes are ultimately worth it, and I'd be wearing them for years to come. I also feel like I'd be able to wear either pair pretty much constantly, without worrying about discomfort.

And yes, upon further reflection I do realize these all look fairly hippie-esque too. What can I say? I'm bohemian at heart. Or at least on my feet...
Which ones do you like? Would you drop some money on Merrell sandals?

Thrifted Finds

2012-02-20T08:52:00.000-05:00

A few months ago I found out about a Salvation Army thrift store nearby. I was told that they had a rather large selection of quality things at affordable prices, including clothes, furniture, and assorted home goods.

The first time I went they actually had an organ(!) which I took a picture of for Shawn. If we had the space for it in our apartment I would not have hesitated to buy it. I didn't end up getting the organ, but I did find this wool Anthropologie sweater for a mere five dollars!

Since then, I've been making a point to go there every few weeks and scope out the newest selections... I've been getting much better at finding brand-name items.

On my latest trip I made quite a few finds: an Alfani silk skirt, a patterned Banana Republic pencil skirt, a colorful striped Lands End button-up shirt, a Kenneth Cole blazer for nights out, and a cotton military-inspired coat for when the weather warms up.

The Kenneth Cole blazer was a steal! As in, I paid for it, but I feel like someone other than me definitely lost money on that deal. It appears to never have been worn, since the original tags are still on there. Lets see... I saved $103.00 on that blazer! My mother would be proud; she's the best bargain shopper I know. Thus, I learned from the best. The blazer is actually a touch too large for me, but at that price, I don't mind getting it tailored some time down the line.

And don't worry, I always browse the men's aisles too. Where do you think Shawn gets all his old man shirts from? They have so many colorful summer plaids, but I stick to blues and greens for him. I never thought I'd be the sort of woman who dresses her man, but shhhh... I think he appreciates it ;)

Happy thrifting!

Some Squirrels For Your Sunday

2012-02-19T07:06:00.000-05:00

Actually, this Sunday it's just one squirrel and some spring flowers.
Spotted on our Saturday afternoon walk.

Thai Curry and Some Arrangements

2012-02-18T11:30:00.001-05:00

Well, I think it's pretty clear what I mean by thai curry... the picture above totally does it justice.
Shawn hadn't made a curry in a really long time so I snuck in a request for some on Thursday while we were doing our grocery shopping. He hit the nail on the head this time around; seriously, this was the best homemade thai chicken curry yet! Usually we forget an ingredient or two, like peanuts or potatoes... but this one had everything, and it was absolutely delicious with just the right amount of heat. I wish we could send you all some through the internet... too bad all you get is a picture!

After our curry feast and an episode of How I Met Your Mother (my new favorite show!), Shawn felt motivated to move some things around in the bedroom. Neither one of us has been sleeping well as of late, so we thought a small change might be nice. We basically swapped the bed and the tv/instrument walls. It makes the whole room flow just a little bit better.

The major difference is that we swapped our sides of the bed too. Shawn now sleeps on the door side and I'm sleeping on the window side, which is perfect for me because I'm like a freakin' furnace at night so now I can be on the cooler side of the room. Small changes, big difference.

More curry for you!

Fun Finds Friday #4

2012-02-17T12:13:00.001-05:00

DIY tea bags, made extra adorable. I'd love to try my hand at this some time.
via

Bill Murray on a five dollar bill. My boss showed this to me the other day; the funny thing is that it really does look like Bill Murray, but it also closely resembles one of my co-workers.
via

My sister posted this on my Facebook wall... with our love for squirrels, it's just too good not to share. Except, now Shawn wants a stuffed squirrel in squirrel armor... where would we even put that?!
via

I came across this vintage name bracelet that says Toni on it, but to me it really looks like it says Fart... I kinda want to buy it. (Edit: PS... I totally just bought it!)
via

Despite the accumulating amount of recipes I keep wanting to try that require one, I still haven't purchased a food processor. Joy The Baker comes to the rescue again with a recipe that tempts me with the flavors of Nutella, but without the need of a food processor. I must try this!
via

One of my customers actually told me about this staircase that some parents made entirely out of legos for their child's room. I grew up playing with legos, but never to this extent. It's definitely worth a look!
via

Happy Friday!

A Few Days of Instagram

2012-02-15T19:41:00.001-05:00

(a very zen gnome at Home Goods / unicorn chocolates / brownies with an oreo surprise / macaroni and cheese with broccoli and bread crumbs / valentines day dinner: chicken wings and cheesesteak / valentines day dessert: chocolate covered pretzels - it's all I asked for and Shawn happily delivered!)

We keep things simple over here.

Oh, hey...

2012-02-14T21:04:00.001-05:00

We don't 'celebrate', considering it's pretty much a Hallmark holiday and neither one of us needs an excuse to say "I love you" or to buy each other chocolate... but I figured I'd say it anyway, since, you know, we love YOU guys! ....and we definitely don't say that often enough.

Why I should never drive to work on Sundays

2012-02-12T17:39:00.001-05:00

So when this happens...

...the best way to lift your spirits is to make funny faces at yourself in your dark living room, right?

I'd make funny faces at Shawn, but he's at work right now so that's proving to be a little more difficult.

Man, I really despise parking lots and Sunday drivers.
Now I have to deal with this shit.
After an awesome three-day weekend, too.
Ughhh.

A Few Days of Instagram

2012-02-10T08:50:00.000-05:00

(my home try-on frames from Warby Parker arrived on Thursday / perfecting the sausage, egg, & cheese / Shawn enjoys a good Boston Creme / dog treats under way / more donuts from the local Amish market / I can make a killer grilled cheese)

I have three days off in a row for the first time in... well, a very long time. I managed to gain an extra day this week because a coworker owed me a favor (ie. a shift in exchange for another). Lucky for me, Shawn has two of those three days off as well!

We spent Thursday running errands, like picking up groceries (donuts included), going to the post office, and doing the laundry, because our life is just glamorous like that. Friday I'll be taking a solo trip out to New Jersey to visit my family and some friends while Shawn is hard at work. And we've made no definite plans for Saturday, but I'm trying to convince Shawn to take a trip to the local Salvation Army with me... they have lots of old man shirts there that he'll like.

Oh, and yes, the blog has had a new look as of Thursday afternoon as well. It's probably the quickest layout I've put together so far, and I'm very pleased with the outcome. You know me though... I'll probably change it again in a few months.

Enjoy the weekend!

Hot Chocolate Love

2012-02-06T11:37:00.001-05:00

Putting some love into a hot chocolate like it's my job....
...oh wait, it totally is my job!

The other day, I made a lovely latte for a lovely woman. It was my best heart-art yet! (But I didn't get a picture because it wouldn't have been right to make her wait for her latte...) When she saw it, her eyes grew wide and she exclaimed "Oh, how beautiful! Did you know that I'm a heart specialist?" I did not know that; but it was seemingly appropriate that she would get my best heart yet :)

Superbowl Sunday

2012-02-05T18:34:00.003-05:00

(image credit)

Yep, we're doing the American thing and watching the Superbowl today!

Shawn's the real football fan, but oddly enough, this year I've grown to like it too...

(We're rooting for the Giants, of course!)

Having Fun With Photos

2012-02-04T17:51:00.001-05:00

I recently came across PuglyPixel.com and downloaded a bunch of her free photoshop art. She has lots of fun things to jazz up photographs and blog layouts. So on my sick day I spent a little time playing around with things... here's a look at what we've been eating lately:

pasta carbonara // homemade pizza with salad

homemade chicken parmesan sandwiches // grilled turkey & cheese sandwich with chips

Yummy!

Sick Day

2012-02-03T20:59:00.001-05:00

Trying to fight a cold that I felt coming on earlier in the week but didn't do anything about....
I spent my only day off this week drinking orange juice, chamomile tea, CVS' equivalent of dayquil, and watching multiple episodes of Malcolm in the Middle, The League, and United States of Tara.

Aside from the cold, it wasn't a bad day off at all.

Some Squirrels For Your Sunday

2012-01-29T16:08:00.001-05:00

Fuzzy squirrel... had to use the zoom to capture him.

I haven't been able to get a picture of anything other than their tails as of late.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

I Made This! Bag From Pants

2012-01-27T19:36:00.000-05:00

You did indeed hear me correctly - I made myself a bag out of a pair of Shawn's old pants. I got the idea from this bag that I pinned months ago. This is actually my second attempt; my first one yielded not-so-delightful results using some cargo shorts. At least the first bag was a good practice round.

I used fabric from a pair of khaki pants for the outside and fabric from a green polo shirt for the inside. (I wouldn't recommend using polo material though... it gave me a really hard time with the sewing machine; the fabric stretches and bunches and kept getting caught in the machine.) The khakis were the perfect material for the outside though - sturdy and thick.

Since I didn't actually like the look of the cargo pocket on the outside, I decided to use one of the pants' back pockets and put it under the flap instead of using it as the flap. I'm really happy with the result - a hidden but useful pocket!

There wasn't enough fabric for me to do one long strap, and since I wanted a bag I could wear messenger-style I made two separate ones instead. Now I can tie the straps to whatever length I want! It adds an element of cuteness, too, since bows are always cute :)

I didn't take a lot of in-progress pictures, since I wasn't sure how well it was going to turn out. This is the only 'before' picture I snapped - all the fabric pieces after cutting them to size but before sewing them together. I sewed the lining (green fabric) pieces together, then sewed the exterior (khaki fabric) pieces together. I didn't actually sew the straps until afterwards, so the pieces for those aren't pictured. For those, I just cut up one leg of the pants and cut two wide strips that I sewed up into tubes with one end closed off, then turned them right side out.

Here's a shot of my wonderful handiwork. Seriously, not to brag or anything, but I'm really proud of this one. I actually finished a sewing project that I set out to do! Alright, the sewing machine did most of the work, but that doesn't mean it's any less of a job well done. I did hit some snafus (mostly with the pesky liner) but the whole project turned out much better than I expected. It also took way longer than I expected... I ended up spending most of my Wednesday off putting this bag together. Next time though, it should be a breeze!

One last photo of the finished product, just to end this post on good note. I will definitely be making more bags this year (...if I say it, I'm more likely to do it! :P) and I'd love to play around with different fabrics, and maybe put a pocket or two on the inside of the next one. Stay tuned!

Fun Finds Friday #3

2012-01-20T10:30:00.004-05:00

Check out this awesome book clutch; I'd really like to make this!
(via)

This duvet cover was hand-drawn using homemade stencils and fabric pens on a solid white cover. I would love to make a duvet that features our various little drawings.
(via)

Mini purses made from coffee bags. If I had access to an iron, I would make these right now.
(via)

This is a cute little dog named Hani. See lots more cleverly captioned photos of Hani over at Busy Busy Hani.

This year I'm pushing myself to do more creative things, outside of baking. This poster is a nice reminder.
(via)

In case you were wondering....

2012-01-18T14:29:00.003-05:00

....this is why you don't see many photos of us on the blog.

Those aren't even the outtakes, those are the real thing.
Our best one is our sidebar photo, where Shawn is about to pretend-stab me with a pen.
I rest my case.

Saturdays Are Sweet

2012-01-16T10:30:00.001-05:00

Over the last few weeks Shawn and I have both had Saturdays off together. The rest of the week usually consists of me working mornings and him working afternoons, then we see each other for just a few hours each night before it repeats again the next day. So having a whole day off together is like a really mini vacation for us. We try to relax, while still getting things done that we weren't able to get to during the rest of the week.

Two Saturdays ago we woke up to beautiful skies and 50 degree weather (Um, it is January still, right?) so we went for a nice long walk - 4.5 miles - around the neighborhood and through one of the many large cemeteries nearby. This Saturday we didn't get quite as lucky, temperatures were back down to the low 30s and we bundled up and walked against the wind just to get some butter for some good ole cookie-making.

There's nothing better than a big plate of comforting breakfast foods to start off a chilly Saturday morning, right? We usually make home fries and bacon with scrambled eggs, but we had some Texas Toast on hand so I swapped out the eggs for some custardy french toast topped with maple syrup.

Our walk to the store was not for-naught! I needed butter to make some chocolate chip cookies, our most favorite of indulgences. This specific batch also contained bursts of mini peanut butter chips and mini peanut butter M&Ms.

...I think we need to make breakfast, (long walks!) and cookies a Saturday tradition. Hopefully Shawn agrees.

Some Squirrels For Your Sunday

2012-01-15T10:30:00.001-05:00

Wet squirrel. Silly little guy, you can't sunbathe during a rain storm!

Squirrels chat as cat looks on. This one is courtesy of a friend.

I Made This! The Bracelet Edition.

2012-01-14T11:03:00.001-05:00

Like many others out there in Internet-Land, I'm a huge fan of Pinterest. Specifically, I'm a fan of pinning things like delicious food, snappy outfits, and things I can make myself.

A few weeks ago I came across these bracelets and thought to myself - they look so easy to make!, so why not make them? So I went to Michaels (which recently opened up about two miles down the road from us! yay!) and picked up some supplies: suede cord, small findings, and clasps.

I roughly used the tutorial here, opting to tie off my ends instead of gluing them. The whole thing is actually very simple, you make a braid and just slide a finding onto each of the outer strands as you go.

The grey bracelet was the first one I made and I found the findings I bought were too big, so I went back and bought smaller ones for the brown bracelet. The other two bracelets are just braided ribbon.

I wouldn't actually wear these all at the same time... it's a bit much, especially for a not-much-jewelry-wearing gal such as myself. But making them all is so incredibly easy - now go make your own!

PEOPLE!

2012-01-12T12:59:00.000-05:00

New Neighbor Guy likes to leave his full trash bags outside his door in the hallway, so everyone else can see and smell it.
If you don't wanna leave it sitting on the tiled kitchen floor in YOUR apartment because of the smell.What makes you think I wanna see or smell it on the CARPETED common area hallway floor.You know that there is drippy liquid in that trash bag.
First the discarded mail on the floor. Now this.
Who is the FUNGUS of a person.

Sketched At Work

2012-01-11T18:24:00.000-05:00

When I started working at Town Hall about a year and a half ago, we were displaying beautiful paintings of Philadelphia area landscapes done by local artist Bill Ternay. We've since gone through many other art displays, but he still stops in on a semi-regular basis. I recently learned that he enjoys discreetly sketching his surroundings. The other day he showed me this sketch he did of me at work:

(Click on the image to see it on a larger scale)

He asked if I'd like a copy and of course I said yes! I can't think of any other time I've been sketched (certainly not to my knowledge, anyway...) The other person in the sketch is another one of our regulars, sipping on a cappuccino.

You can see more of Bill's work here.

The Week In Photos

2012-01-08T18:13:00.000-05:00

Here we go again, another photo recap post... oh, but they're so much fun!

From two different days. Apparently we eat a lot of pizza.

Shawn makes a mighty fine meatloaf. Mighty fine.

My sister snapped this during a family trip to the Woodbury Outlets... dreamy Marine.

Our friend Little Buddy; he likes to sun-bathe outside our kitchen window.

Brownies made in a cast-iron pan, with chopped up oreo cookie bark inside.

We found some of Shawn's ancestors during a recent afternoon cemetery walk... along with the best multi-family tombstone ever! Almost too good to be true.

Shawn with a Dali-stache. Mustaches are always the best way to end a post!

Fun Finds Friday #2

2012-01-06T12:09:00.002-05:00

More fun finds for your Friday! (Didn't I tell you I'd try to keep them coming?)

This awesome house used to be a Grain Silo! I love how open it is, and all the fun spaces.
(via)

A homemade play-kitchen made by the couple over at Young House Love. I remember having a play-kitchen when I was a kid, but they kicked it up a notch by making the whole thing themselves; such a sweet gift for their daughter!

You know how much we love squirrels... I was head over heels when I saw this captured photo of a squirrel nom-ing on some corn stalks. What a guy.
(via)

I recently discovered that you can use apps in Google Chrome (clearly I'm a little slow on the up-take...) and the Do It (Tomorrow) app is my new favorite. It's a simple to-do list that automatically moves any uncompleted tasks to the next day. Perfect for procrastinators like myself! (PS. They're blurred out because they're mostly about blog related things I don't want you to know about! ;P)

I recently made this French Coconut Pie at work and it was a huge hit! The coconut custard is perfectly sweet and smooth. The story that accompanies it is cute too!
(via)

Happy Friday!

That's So 2011...

2012-01-02T10:46:00.000-05:00

A lot of bloggers I follow are doing 2011 recaps that feature their best/favorite posts/photos... but I'm not going to do that. Well, not exactly... Truth be told, I didn't blog as much last year as I would have hoped. When there's not much to say, well, there's not much to say (especially when you're being redundant). Overall 2011 was a good year; lots of things happened, just nothing incredibly significant.

As far as the blog goes:

- We added the walk log in June to keep track of our monthly mileage. Still going strong with our goal to walk an average of 1 mile per day!

- I kind of fell off the recipe bandwagon; I was doing well at the beginning of the year but now I can't honestly remember when I last posted a recipe. Which is strange, because we've been cooking/baking more than ever these last few months. A lot of times I don't post about it because I can't capture any attractive photos of the food!

- We changed the layout a few times, each time striving for a cleaner, simpler look.

And what about us?

- We renewed our lease in June, choosing to stay in our humble apartment for another year to put off having to search for something new.

- After endless months of unemployment, Shawn got a job at the deli/restaurant a few doors down from the coffeeshop I work at. If you know our history at all, this is ironic considering we first met while we were working in a similar strip-mall: me at a coffeeshop, him at the video store a few doors down...

- I really blossomed at work, adding more and more recipes to my repertoire. I took on two actual days of baking per week, instead of just fitting it in when I could during my barista shifts. And! I haven't actually shared this with anyone other than Shawn and my co-workers yet but my scones were photographed alongside a delicious cappuccino to appear in the February 2012 issue of Main Line Today for an article about the best places to get breakfast in the Main Line! (PS. I've been in a local magazine before.)

- I got crafty and made a few things out of fabric, paper, and various odds and ends. I started putting together a book of my own recipes, my sewing machine got more use than ever before, I spent countless hours sitting on the floor, and I learned that making things yourself is not only satisfying, but also not nearly as hard as it appears!

Which brings me to my next point. My last sewing project of 2011:

I forgot to take a 'before' picture prior to sewing, but these are a pair of salmon pink corduroy pants that I got for $3 at the local Salvation Army Thrift store after months of looking for well fitting colorful pants. The only problem? They had a flared leg that hit right above my foot - too wide and too short, whilst the rest of the pants fit nicely. Since the pants didn't cost me much I wasn't too worried about taking a pair of scissors to them, so I took it upon myself to take in the pant legs a bit. Thusly taking them from flared to straight-leg - much more wearable!

Just for kicks, here's a photo of me actually wearing them:

Quiet! I don't know how to pose. At all. Oh and, silly picture #1 & silly picture #2.

For future reference, this is what I looked like on the first day of 2012.
(Happy-faced and ready for another year!)

...not much different than on the last day of 2011.

That is all.

Rocking out the old year!

2012-01-01T10:13:00.000-05:00

For the last few years I have tried to have a classic rock station playing music on new years eve.I like to hear which is the last song played in the old year and the first played in the new year.
I do not remember what last year was...
But I wrote it down this year!
With the aid of Tango Traffic Digital TV Channel 17.4 in the greater Philadelphia area this is what was heard.

‎2nd to last song of 2011 - "Something" by The Beatles
last song of 2011 - "Red Barchetta" by Rush
first song of 2012 - "Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones
second song of 2012 - "I put a Spell on You" CCR Version
third song of 2012 - "Stay With Me" by Faces
forth song of 2012 - "Dream Police" by Cheap Trick
Now I have a record of it!Who knows where or what station I will be listening to next year!
Rock on baby!

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T19:02:00.000-05:00

Happy new year, everyone! Oh, what a year it has been.
I hope you're all bringing in 2012 with people you love and cherish!

Shawn and I have had the whole day off together, so we took a walk down to the liquor store and followed it up with some cocktails and candy. We've also got some friends heading up here tonight for some more celebration... not too much celebration though; we both have work in the morning!

Much love and happiness to all!

Favorite Interweb findings of 2011!

2011-12-30T11:23:00.002-05:00

I wanted to share my favorite photos that I found on the internet this year!This is a small collection of things that I save to a folder called "internet findings."

Gay Mexican Unicorn??
This photo was paid for.
This guy actually went to a studio and said I wanna be photographed as a unicorn.

My most favorite photo of the year!
Mr. Fox looks so happy!

Classic Comedy.

I love me some santa and machine guns on holiday photos.

My favorite from the Deadspin series "Unintentional Dongs"

This dude got the friggin sweetest shot ever! That is a once in 5 life times shot!
unbelievable moment caught!

Ice T Bitches!

I have a huge love of the anime series NARUTO.
This is a painting of a tailed fox beast!

Really! Who made this and placed it on the internet! come on!

Paula Dean Riding Things was hot for a minute.

That's right men. Keep your grip while doing your shit.
This add screams masturbation all over it.
Which makes it hilarious.

Thank you Old Spice for providing such overtly obvious Penis References.
To the point where Colbert had to comment on it.

So that concludes my favorite findings of the year.I hope next year is even sillier!

A Very Merry Jolly Christmas

2011-12-26T19:53:00.001-05:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend! We drove to my parents' house late Saturday night and had a delicious breakfast and lunch with my family before heading over to Shawn's mom's place for even more food and family time. The only thing that would have made the weekend better would have been a little bit of snow!

I only took a few pictures; family time takes precedence over immense documentation! Here's a taste of our weekend:

So many presents under the pretty tree! I think we all spoiled each other this year.

It's always a good day when you're greeted by this big fuzzball. I just want to fluff him up and curl up in a ball next to him.

Speaking of Kusko, look at him stealthily checking out the ham action going on. It's not the best photo of the ham, but I totally caught those hungry eyes without even meaning to.

Breakfast was croissants and jam, with freshly squeezed orange juice. Lunch was champagne and wine with a plate full of baked ham, mashed potatoes, spinach and sweet potato salad, and green beans. Dessert consisted of a pear and chocolate tart, key lime pie, and a buttermilk pear pie. We definitely did not go home hungry (especially since Shawn's mom made a whole Thanksgiving dinner too!)

I also wasn't kidding about the gifts; this year's bounty put smiles on our faces. A good mix of things we needed (gloves, wooden spoons, a quality chefs knife), things we wanted (all sorts of books, a video game, old navy gift cards, dinosaur related things), and things we never expected (a roku player, a quality chefs knife, and a mini cast-iron brownie pan) - yay!

My new iPhone cover didn't make it into the group picture. It's too cute not to share though!

We also did a gift exchange at work this year. My co-workers must know me well because I got some cashmere pocket hand warmers (perfect for our walks!), a book by one of my favorite authors, a recipe book for cat treats, a recipe box full of recipe cards, and this gnome statue (it even has a squirrel!!). Unfortunately it arrived with one broken bench leg, so we need to glue it back together before he can hang out with the other gnomies.

I'll leave you with a gratuitous 'stache shot. Shawn says I look like Frank Zappa, ha!

Fun Finds Friday

2011-12-23T06:04:00.002-05:00

I have Five (ok, six) Fun Things for you this Friday! I'd love to make this a staple on the blog, maybe every few Fridays or so, but lets see how long I can keep this up first.

1. Dream Big - a mosaic of Martin Luther King Jr. created entirely out of Rubik's Cubes!
(via)

2. The greatest website ever created! Ok, maybe that's a stretch, but not really.
PrintFriendly.com

3. This custom Guess Who? game board featuring US Presidents is pretty awesome.
(via)

4. Who doesn't love The Count? ...ten apples... eleven apples... hahaha!
(via)

5. I've seen so many different takes on the "Keep Calm and Carry On" posters... this is one of my favorites.
(via)

I thought I'd throw this in too: I've been loving these yoga sequences by Bridget Lyons. I've been doing the 30-minutes sequences and they're just enough to get you heated and revitalized; she also has enough on there for variety throughout the week.

Happy holidays, everyone! Have a wonderful weekend!

i've smelt some things...

2011-12-22T12:05:00.000-05:00

This is a rather short note of a post.
It smells like somebody in our apartment complex is washing shit stained underpants or diapers in the community washing machine.
it is smells so bad some times that even I gag.(like today)
Dear Dumb Ass Shit Crappers,Rinse your shit stained crap bags before you put them in a machine that other people use!
Are you just washing a load of shit??
Here let me take a shit in all my pants and wash them.Who the fuck does that!
WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THE PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD!!!
I guess my mother actually taught me wrong and right?Or how not to be a fuck hole?
COME ON PEOPLE!!!!!!!
GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Also there is a new bunny comic up!www.idrawbunnies.com
(it seems that I rant a bunch.)

New Bunnies Comic...

2011-12-19T12:43:00.001-05:00

New drawing is up! it's not of bunnies. It's of rocks. I like drawing rocks.

www.idrawbunnies.com

Two Squirrels For Your Sunday

2011-12-18T21:00:00.000-05:00

I bought us an advent calendar from Trader Joe's this year, since it was only 99 cents. Every day there's a tiny piece of milk chocolate molded into something winter/holiday related. Of course there was a squirrel.

Last year we had a couple of different squirrel visitors at our sunny kitchen window. This year, we haven't had quite so many, and they're not as eager for close human interaction. Usually they stick to the branches of the tree right outside the window. Shawn caught this guy sunbathing on our windowsill this morning though!

Eccentric Collections

2011-12-17T10:58:00.002-05:00

I have a lot of little collections. I'm not really quite sure how they all started, but I'm pretty sure when other people in your life start buying you things because you "have a few similar ones already", that's considered having a collection...

What do I collect? Clocks, salt & pepper shakers, elephants, and gnomes. That's what I can think of off the top of my head, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm forgetting something.

Clocks! Lots of clocks. There are also a few small tabletop ones around the apartment, but I just photographed the wall clocks in the kitchen. I think I have 10 clocks in total!

This is my newest clock! I hadn't bought one in years so when I came across this one at Home Goods, it just had to come home with me. Unfortunately, it's too heavy to hang on the hooks we have (since our walls are impenetrable we've resorted to using dual-sided sticky tabs and hooks), so it's camping out on the living room floor until I can figure out what to do with it.

I spotted the frogs and the kissing fish shakers online around the same time - they're both vintage. Then for Christmas two years ago, Shawn got me the kissing hippie shakers. (Well, they're supposed to be kissing; I need to re-glue the magnet onto the hippie guy.) The hugging dog shakers are from my mom; she brought them all the way back from Thailand! I hope to one day have corner cabinet shelves in my kitchen so that I can display all of these properly!

Just like all of my collections, the elephants started randomly too. I have an elephant from Peru, one from Amsterdam, and one from France, the others were all acquired just as randomly. I suppose I like traveling elephants. The tray is from ikea; we put it to use as our 'catch-all' tray by the front door. I couldn't resist the pretty colors and patterns!

And like a jerk, I completely forgot to photograph the gnomes. But they've actually graced the blog with their presence before! Now I don't feel quite as bad.

There you have it! I'm now an eighth of the way to becoming a hoarder ;) What do you collect?

Neighborly Advice

2011-12-16T11:06:00.001-05:00

We have a new neighbor again. The nice quiet couple across the hall moved out several months ago. Now we have an Egyptian / Jewish looking guy.
He likes to talk really loudly on the phone in the hallway and slam doors.
He has yet to put his name on his mailbox.Which I guess means he doesn't intend to receive mail.
Including all the junk mail that came to his mailbox.He took it upon himself to sort out mail not addressed to HIS NAME,So he started throwing it on the floor.
At first it was a few Bed Bath and Beyond coupons. About a week ago Marine had noticed a Bed Bath and Beyond Coupon outside on the steps.She placed it back inside.It was not addressed to us. Yet we did not want trash blowing around our lovely courtyard.
Then it was the weekly coupons and junk being piled up underneath the mailbox.
After a small pile had compiled. (hahah pile joke)This guy placed the pile outside on the front steps!He continued to do such sucky things.
Marine came home yesterday and exclaimed,"I'm going to go ahead and assume our new neighbor is an asshole."
So she told me about the pile that had been growing.I looked and it was like a grocery bag full of papers and ads.
Later in the evening as we were trying to nap. We heard the Maintenance Man (hereby referred to as MM) knocking on his door.
MM told him to stop putting his mail on the stoop outside.
The guy had the nerve to tell MM that it was NOT HIS MAIL.MM basically laughed and said, "Don't lie to me."
I am fairly certain that new guy even tried to blame it on me!Which MM nicely defended with, "He wouldn't do that. Look, I know the address. It says it on the mail.Just knock it off."
The new guy defeated, apologized and offered to clean it up.
WHO THE FUCK IS THIS GUY!
You DO NOT put junk mail on the floor underneath the mailbox in the common area.You DO NOT place pile of junk outside in the elements when it becomes to large!
Obviously this guys parents didn't teach him common sense things.
THIS IS WHAT IS WRONG WITH AMERICA.
Some body else isn't gonna deal with it man!
YOU GOTTA DEAL WITH IT YOURSELF!
How hard is it to take the junk mail and place it in recycling?
What a fucking ass nut.

Here we go again... (Recap!)

2011-12-07T22:46:00.001-05:00

I can't believe it's already December... where did the last month go?! November was a blur.
I'll just use these handy Instagram photos to recap!

1. Our Thanksgiving dinner (chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, and beers). I also had the good fortune of eating Thanksgiving dinner with my family the day prior... lots to be thankful for this year!
2. An awesome thrifted Anthropologie sweater I found for a whopping $6!
3. Sugar cookies/failed snickerdoodles... I realized halfway through the recipe that I had no cinnamon.
4. Seven! One of our local friend's cat. We've known him since he was a wee little kitten.
5. Luna being a cutie on Thanksgiving at my family's house.
6. Chicken orzo soup we made back when the weather wasn't so unseasonably warm.

Other note-worthy things:

The biggest lemon I have ever seen. (shown with other lemons for comparison)

I twisted apart a Trader Joe's oreo and found a sweet looking Meatwad!

Oh, and I made a bunch of pies. Fourteen pies, to be exact. And six dozen cookies. All for holiday orders at the shop! And the feedback was delicious :)

And that about sums up November!
I have a few more posts up my sleeve for December, don't you worry.

WTF

2011-12-06T12:08:00.004-05:00

So apparently NPR reported a couple weeks ago about how our water levels around here contained extreme amounts of contaminants and such of things like fluoride and so on.
Not only was NPR asked to take down the article from online. But the government apparently changed the law to allow .1 parts per million, compared to the .01 part per million or what ever it was beforehand.
So Kilian was right. We shouldn't be drinking the water.

Thanks to Marine's doctor for the heads up.
It's time to start my Awesome Water Bottling Company.

PS. A good source to check out is the EPA's website... they tell you why unnecessary things like Fluoride are added to our drinking water. Some of their water treatment standards haven't been changed since the 90s!

Dear Netflix (again)

2011-11-19T08:11:00.000-05:00

This is another open letter to Netflix.
Dear Netflix,
For just about a month now (Since we dropped the DVD service) We have had some trouble with an error code.
At First the error code happened from time to time.Each day this week I have signed on to Netflix. I have tried playing multiple titles.Nothing loads or plays.Then when I exit and go back into Netflix it gives me the error code. " Xbox Error Code 1."
PC LOAD LETTER! WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN! (from Office Space)
Online Forums say that both Netflix and Xbox take No responsibility for the Error Code.
I should not have to delete and re install Netflix everyday so I can watch my shows. I am paying for a service that your company is not providing.It is fucking stupid.
I should not have to Activate my device every single fucking day.
Netflix can suck a giant floppy donkey dong.
I am one Error Code message away from switching to Hulu. ( I am super cereal about that )
With Loving Hatred,Shawn Hill

A BUNNY COMIC!

2011-11-07T12:36:00.002-05:00

So I've been a little lacking on posts. Cause I think to much and do not write.

October Comes to an End

2011-11-02T19:41:00.001-04:00

I apologize for my absence from the blog lately... I've just been feeling more crafty than chatty these days. I've been keeping myself busy with various little crafts here and there. I always forget how satisfying it is to create things!

Cupcake craftery.
My mother bought this awesome cupcake wrapping paper just for me! I have two big squares of it from the last gifts I received, and I really wanted to find some way to re-use it. I have a few ideas for these cute little cupcakes, but so far I've only done one thing with them: turned them into magnets! I bought some card stock, glued the cupcakes on, cut around them, and stuck a small magnet on the back - easy fridge bling!

Can you find the cupcakes?

A-ha! There they are, those sneaky cupcakes!

How about food crafts? Does making chocolate and peanut butter chip cookies count as a craft? I believe it does. A girl's gotta eat while she crafts, don't you agree?

Headbands are cool, right? Either way, I've been making a bunch of them lately out of t-shirt scraps. What I'm most proud of on this one is the stitch work; I've been having fun trying out different hand-stitches on each headband.

I also made a skirt out of a hand-me-down dress, just in time to wear for my birthday!
A friend gave me this pretty dress over the summer; I loved the colors and the pattern but I was not a fan of the top half... the spaghetti straps and the cross-front style just weren't doing it for me, and I knew I would never wear it as a dress. So I turned it into a skirt!

It was a really simple re-fashion; I just cut the skirt part off and folded the cut end of the fabric down and sewed a straight line, making sure to leave enough room for my elastic. Then I just messed with the bunching a bit to make sure all the fabric was easily distributed, and voila! A much more wearable item for me.

Here are some other awesome/noteworthy things:

A pumpkin themed dinner with old (& new!) friends.
These two ladies and I had been trying to plan a dinner gathering for at least two months before it finally happened this past weekend. All the boyfriends were in attendance too, except for Shawn, who was unfortunately stuck at work during the festivities :(

The menu consisted of butternut squash, bacon & onion soup, with a side of parsley chicken, beef bacon, honey butter cornbread, and spiced pumpkin cupcakes for dessert. It was delicious, to say the least, and time spent with good friends made it all the better. Also, I have to admit it's really pretty fun playing hostess!

Death By Chocolate Cupcakes
I know I said I wasn't going to make myself a cake for my birthday (after making Shawn's and my mom's recently) but I just couldn't resist these cupcakes. Is there anything better than chocolate? How about more chocolate? Chocolate cake topped with chocolate ganache, chocolate buttercream, and more chocolate ganache... too much chocolate? Blasphemy! They only kill you if you don't eat them.

I think that's enough for now. Crafts, friends, family, food, (snow!)... October was a busy month. I felt so much love this October, and I'd like to thank everyone who made me smile - I love all of you!

Breakfast Platter

2011-10-19T13:32:00.001-04:00

Having grown up in New Jersey, to me (and I'm sure Shawn would also agree) there's no better breakfast sandwich than a pork roll, egg & cheese on a kaiser bun (The band Ween even wrote a song about it!). Bacon is yummy as all hell, and so is sausage... but if you want a true breakfast sandwich, pork roll is where it's at! Unfortunately, pork roll seems to be primarily a Jersey thing- good luck trying to find some outside of the tri-state area. The packaged stuff is in most grocery stores, but finding a deli/restaurant that makes sandwiches with it is a whole other story. Lucky for us, there's a small deli only four miles away that serves up some of the best pork roll egg & cheese sandwiches I have ever tasted...

But that's not what this breakfast post is about, because I didn't get a pork roll egg & cheese this morning... I got a breakfast platter. Two eggs (over-easy for me!), with cheese, hash browns, and toast. With a side of pancakes. Yes, you read that right- I got the platter, plus three tasty fluffy round pancakes. (Because, you know, eggs and all that jazz just isn't enough for a grumbly Marine belly.) And as evidenced in the photo below, I devoured nearly everything.

Shush. I'll let you in on a secret... I actually ate more after the photo was taken. Oh, and that cheese danish off to the side there? That was Shawn's breakfast. Which he didn't even finish. This is why we rarely go out for breakfast together - I'm a monster in the morning! And now there's photographic evidence. I guess Shawn just isn't one of those people that wakes up with a grouchy stomach that won't stop yelling obscenities at you until you fill it with something. What? Your stomach doesn't do that to you? Well, maybe my appetite and I need to have a sit-down chat one of these days.... one that includes eggs, potatoes, and pancakes.

The best part is, when we went to pick up the order the woman at the register asked if we'd be paying for everything together, and then she threw in two sets of forks and knives. Heh! If only she knew. (Actually, it's probably better that she didn't.) I don't need the whole world knowing I'm secretly housing a monster in my belly. Don't worry, I charge him a hefty rent... and then I give him all the food he can eat.

A Tuesday Off

2011-10-11T21:34:00.001-04:00

Shawn and I haven't had a single day off together since the mini vacation we took almost three weeks ago. (Our stay-cation consisted of three requested days off in a row together - it rained all of that week so instead of semi-planned activities around the city we ended up staying in the apartment and watched a bunch of movies and old tv shows. We took that trip to Longwood Gardens on the only day the sun came out.) Since then, we've seen each other briefly in the mornings and for a few hours in the evening when we each get back from our respective work places. It's pretty lame, I'll be honest, but I guess that's just how 'being an adult' goes. We gotta pay those bills, yo.

On my lonesome days off I'm always itching to find things to do, something to help pass the time. I'm not really much of a tv watcher - the computer/internet is my vice and if I'm not careful I can get sucked into the computer screen for a few hours. So to give my eyes a much needed break I'll usually go shopping for an hour or two. Shawn always shakes his head at me because he knows I have a tendency to go browse Target or Gap and inevitably I always come home with something. (Usually a highly discounted something, might I add...)

Well, while I did indeed go to a few different stores today, I didn't come home with anything other than groceries (my #1 vice is and always will be FOOD). And- I came home $1 richer! While I was browsing the sales at J.Crew, I opened up a greatly discounted purse only to find a crumpled dollar bill in the inside pocket! I don't think I'm going to spend it though; I think I may hide it somewhere discreet for some other lucky person to find.

I made a quick stop into Trader Joe's to find something I could easily fix myself for lunch. I left with a mini frozen broccoli and cheddar quiche, a bag of mixed lettuce, and a box of Joe Joe's. The quiche and salad made for an easy filling lunch; I always forget how good a simple salad can be. And the cookies. Oh, the cookies. Lets just say I won't be buying Oreos any time soon. Joe Joe's taste real, and have ingredients you can pronounce, and vanilla bean filling you can see. Not to rub it in, but you are seriously missing out if you don't have a Trader Joe's near you.

And I made something today! I came across this tutorial earlier in the day and decided to give it a try. I'm always a fan of anything that keeps my hair out of my face, but for some reason I only own one headband. Well, now I own two! I also have a bunch of t-shirts I can't wear as t-shirts anymore so perhaps I'll be making a few more of these in various colors.

Ciao!

Time for a New Look!

2011-10-10T10:08:00.000-04:00

I'm not the only one changing my appearance around here. As you may or may not have noticed, over the weekend iveseensomethings.com got a whole new design! Gone are the days of grey and yellow with double sidebar action - it was time for a change... we had the old theme up for far too many months in a row. (Especially compared to how often we used to go through new themes!) So here's another simple design with some more exciting colors and a couple of new features.

First things first, we have a new tag line! Recollections of daily life: things we've seen, made, & done. When Shawn originally purchased iveseensomethings.com a few years ago it was a little spot for him to post his photography. When we decided to use it as the domain for our blog in 2009 I struggled to find a tag line that properly encompassed what the blog was about while still tying in the name. It took me over a year but I think I finally accomplished that.

But back to the new look!

Up at the very top you'll find our menu for all the useful things: our about us page, the recipes page, the walk log, and a link back to the home page. There's more fun stuff in our sidebar - just click the tabs at the top of that first box for tags, archives, and the walk log.

Below all of that are links to various other places you can find us on the web, and links to our respective individual pursuits (comics and dog treats!). I also implemented a search feature if you're looking for something more specific than what you can find in the tags.

Also, since my birthday is coming up... I conveniently put a wishlist in the sidebar too :) But you know, no pressure or anything. I'll probably leave it up there even after my birthday passes since, you know, Christmas is right on our heels...

The only thing this layout is missing is a more recent photo of the two of us; we haven't taken any since the last one was taken months ago. It's about time for a new photo! Funny enough, for a blog that's all about us, there aren't a whole lot of photos of the two of us on here. Hey Shawn, lets get on that!

A Week In October

2011-10-08T11:34:00.001-04:00

I've been trying to be better about updating the blog on a more regular basis... but I must not be doing a very good job because this is another 'this week in photos' recap post. Eh, nothing wrong with those I guess!

On Sunday my family and I celebrated my mom's birthday with a lamb and potato dinner and a dark chocolate raspberry truffle cake that I made just for the occasion.

On Tuesday I made a vanilla pound cake that turned out beautifully - buttery and dense yet with a soft light crumb and crunchy exterior. The best part is, it gets even better as it sits!

On Wednesday I took that same pound cake and turned some of it into french toast. It was just as indulgent and satisfying as it sounds.

Later that day I also went to the farmer's market and brought home some of the last summer corn. The farmer threw in a few extra because these were much smaller than usual. We love sweet corn! (evidenced by a very similar meal just last week) There's just nothing like local corn on the cob.

On Thursday I had a fantastic dinner with my mom at the restaurant where I worked in their pastry department for 1.5 years prior. The dinner was three courses followed by a buffet of various intricately constructed desserts... so tasty! There are no pictures from that night but I thought it was still worth mentioning.

Oh, and at some point in the week I also finally uploaded the photos I took at Longwood Gardens. You can check them out on flickr if you'd like! Shawn still has to sort through his. Here are a few of my favorites:

And that pretty much sums up the week! Here's to the weekend.

Vegetable Stuffed Zucchini

2011-09-30T19:55:00.000-04:00

It's really hard for me to capture our dinners in an attractive manner. We tend to eat pretty late most nights, closer to 9 or 10pm because that's just how our schedules work out. As such, all the photos I take of dinner are taken in our poorly lit kitchen and they just end up dim and fuzzy most of the time. It doesn't matter how attractive the food looks right in front of me... it never looks as tasty in photos.

Who am I kidding? I'm no food photographer, that's for sure. But I've noticed that the photos I take early in the day always turn out ten times better than the dinner night shots...

But who really has the time to cook dinner at three in the afternoon when the sun is actually out? Or set up an elaborate system of lights just to get proper photos at night? Especially when this is dinner we're talking about! I don't know about you, but I really don't want to wait another 20 minutes to eat something I just spent 20+ minutes making. So instead of taking 50 or so photos like I do when I'm not rushing and my tummy isn't grumbling, I end up taking maybe 15 photos and hope that I get at least one decent one from the group. Most of the time I'm lucky if I get that one.

So forgive me if these photos don't make this vegetable stuffed zucchini look as appealing as it really was. Honestly, sometimes I think trying to capture a decent photo of food is way harder than making it. These zucchini 'boats' were simple to put together and didn't need a whole lot of time in the oven - perfection! We filled ours with rice, red and green peppers, and onion. Oh, and we topped them with a gruyere/cheddar mix which might have been the very best part of the whole meal. I kid, of course, but seriously. Oh! Or maybe the best part was that all of these veggies came from the farmer's market! Can I get a heck yeah? Heck Yeah.

Vegetable Stuffed Zucchini
serves 2 people as an entree, 4 people as a side

Ingredients:
2 medium zucchinis
1 small onion
1 cup of sweet peppers
salt & pepper, to taste
paprika & garlic powder, to taste
olive oil
1/2 cup rice, cooked according to package
cheese, to grate (we used a gruyere/cheddar mix)

- Rinse and dry your zucchini, and slice each one in half. Chop off the tops of zucchini if desired.
- Spoon out the zucchini pulp with a spoon (Don't throw it out though!) Once you've made little zucchini 'boats', place them in a casserole dish and brush a little bit of olive oil along each half.
- Chop up the zucchini pulp and set it aside. Dice the onion and peppers and set those aside as well.
- Make your rice according the directions on the bag, and set it aside once it's done.
- In the mean time, heat up some oil in a pan and saute the onions and peppers until they're soft and the onions are beginning to become transparent.
- Combine the zucchini pulp, sauteed onions and peppers. Stir in the cooked rice, and add salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder to taste.
- Once everything is well incorporated, spoon the mixture into each of your zucchini 'boats' and top each with some shredded cheese.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 20 - 25 minutes, until the zucchini is tender and easily pierced with a paring knife.
- Gently plate the stuffed zucchini and top with fresh herbs if desired.
- Enjoy!

Another Trip to the Farmers Market

2011-09-28T23:36:00.000-04:00

Beautiful potatoes, two ears of corn, and a half gallon of apple cider.

Fresh herbs: spearmint and lemon thyme.
I love it when my schedule works out so that I can get to the farmers market once a week. Most of the summer fruits and berries are gone already, but I'm always happy to see the start of autumn because it means it's apple cider season! Cider aside, I figured I can't go wrong with corn and potatoes, and the herbs I bought with something special in mind to use them for... stay tuned!

September floats on by...

2011-09-23T13:16:00.003-04:00

Lately my posts have been more photo-heavy and less wordy...
But you know what? I'm ok with that. There's not much to say these days anyway.

Shawn's birthday was last week. He never likes to make a big fuss about it but this year I made him a big cake (yellow cake with chocolate sour cream frosting, to be exact) and got him a few unexpected gifts. He was pleasantly surprised!

We also made meatballs with a side of tortellini for his birthday dinner - quite possibly the best meatballs Shawn has made yet!

I realized I never talk much about what I bake at work. Honestly, I always forget to bring my camera in with me! Here's a peek at what I'll usually make on a weekly basis.... cookies, muffins, scones, and some sort of loaf. And yep, that's all the workspace I have. Hey, you don't need a whole lot of space if you keep it organized properly!

Oh, and pies! I made a lot of pies this summer using up all sorts of fresh fruits, but I'm really excited about making some pies for autumn!

Zucchini bread gets its close-up. I honestly had never made or really even eaten zucchini bread until this summer, but now I think it's absolutely wonderful! It's a lot of fun to bake with vegetables too.

...Of course, what's a post on here without some gratuitous pictures of what we made for dinner?

Mini pizzas made on naan bread! My parents made some the last time I visited and I thought "What a genius idea!" Indeed. We used Trader Joe's frozen naan (warmed in the oven before adding toppings) topped with tomato sauce, red and green peppers, onion, mozzarella and cheddar cheeses, and a sprinkling of fresh parsley.

This week we also splurged and bought some steaks which we paired with homemade sour cream mashed potatoes and green beans. Yummy! Shawn cooked those steaks perfectly!

Oh, I know that's not food up there, don't be silly! But I was too proud of myself not to share a photo of this pillow case I 'fixed'. There was nothing wrong with it to start, it was just made for a bigger pillow that we no longer have, so I sewed it down to fit this smaller pillow. It was a simple sewing project, I can't believe it took me weeks to get motivated to do it! I'm so proud of myself every time I look at the bed now though :)

Expect an onslaught of photos on our flickr soon; we went to Longwood Gardens yesterday and took over 200 photos each! We're so excited to share them once we sort through them all.

Chop chop!

2011-09-07T18:40:00.001-04:00

This weekend, I did a little chopping outside of the kitchen...

A whopping eight inches! I took my chances and went to one of the local salons after hearing only good things about it. And in case you couldn't tell, I'm absolutely lovin' it. That's the long and short of it! (Oh, and Shawn likes it too! :D)

Lazy Rainy Days

2011-08-28T14:35:00.001-04:00

By now you've all probably heard about Hurricane Irene, and I'm glad I don't have to give you all the details because honestly, I'm tired of hearing about it. Irene is all anyone could talk about at work for the last few days: "Oh, have you heard about the hurricane?" "So how about this storm, huh?" "Are you prepared for Irene?" ... yes, I've heard about the hurricane. What storm? All I see is rain. And I'm as prepared as I feel I need to be. I bought a 24-pack of bottled water and three cans of Campbell's Select Harvest soups, then Shawn and I chuckled about everyone else stocking up like crazy on things such as bread and frozen and microwave meals... uh, Hello? Anybody home? If the power goes out, your freezer and microwave are going to be pretty darn useless, don't you think?

Anyways, I thought I'd give you all and update and say - we're ok. Our area wasn't hit with much other than lots and lots of rain, extensive wind, and a power flicker in the middle of the night. Really, nothing we haven't dealt with before.

Honestly, the only downside to this whole Irene business is that I'm at home all by lonesome today while Shawn's working the afternoon away. Ok, maybe I worded that all wrong; the downside isn't that I'm home, it's that my work day got cancelled and Shawn's didn't. So instead of both working the afternoon away, or both being at home together... well, you get the point.

Lame-o. I've had to find little ways to pass the time; so I made a batch of oat & maple scones (they're so adorably tiny and packed full of moist maple yumminess!). I also put the extra effort into making lunch - boiled some pasta, cooked up some spinach, reheated a little pasta sauce, and fried up an egg to throw on top (actually, I fried up two eggs because the yolk broke on the first one... and seriously, what's the point of topping something with a fried egg that's not a little runny?)

Next, I plan on catching up on the latest few episodes of My Drunk Kitchen. Maybe after that I'll be more motivated to do a simple sewing project I've had sitting around (taking a big pillowcase and shrinking it to fit a different pillow; so simple but I'm so lazy.) And who knows? Maybe that small step into sewing world will motivate me to start one of the many other sewing projects on my list... doubtful.

All in all, I'm in agreement with Shawn's initial assessment of the storm: the media hyped everything up to get people to spend some money and give the economy a much needed boost. Well played, media, well played.

The last three weeks, in pictures...

2011-08-23T10:12:00.000-04:00

As you can see, we ate a ton of homemade pizza (topped with lots of local veggies)... made some more brownies... found different ways to use up this summer's delicious peaches... spotted some squirrels and spent time with a dog (or two).

... I guess we're not very interesting people after all, hm?

Macaroni and Cheese, please!

2011-08-21T18:15:00.002-04:00

Grr. I'm such a bad blogger and I really do need to stop apologizing for my lack of posts. (I'm a busy little bee, what can I say!) What I should apologize for though is not keeping my promise to share an amazing mac n' cheese recipe with you! I shared pictures of it and then let ~~two~~ three weeks go by while you probably sat there drooling and clicking the refresh button in your browser... alright, I'll admit, I've made some much more drool-worthy things before (like these s'mores brownies) but I swear this mac n' cheese is worth it.

It's super duper easy to make, seriously. The hardest part is waiting!

Mac N' Cheese
adapted from Taylor Takes a Taste

Ingredients:
1-pound pasta of your choice
salt and pepper to your taste
2 1/2 cups sharp cheddar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon mustard
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/3 cup sour cream
1 egg, beaten
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon worcestire sauce

- Preheat your oven to 350°F.
- Cook the pasta according to the package, then combine it with 1 1/2 cups of cheese in a 9x9 inch baking dish.
- In a large bowl, combine all of the other ingredients and whisk them until combined. Pour the mixture over the pasta, making sure everything is well-coated. Top everything off with another cup of cheese.
- Bake for 30 - 35 minutes, or until the top is golden. Let the macaroni and cheese sit for at least 10 minutes before serving it, so that it has time to set as it cools.
- Enjoy!

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

2011-08-19T17:38:00.001-04:00

The following 2 television advertisements piss me off.
But Why Shawn?Why would you be pissed off at TV commercials?
I am pissed off because the songs in these commercials get stuck in my head.
But Shawn, you love the Dixie Plate Commericial.
Yes I do. But that jingle was good! It is great. Sung well. Recorded well. Produced Well.
These 2 "jingles" are so bad, they actually work so well... and I HATE IT!
While I am trying to sleep. When I wake up. In the shower. At Work!!EVEN WALKING DOWN THE FRIGGIN STREET!!!!!
These terrible "jingles" are stuck in my brain!They are driving me insane.
Target

Damn you Target. I actually like your 2nd Grade Teacher Ad. So you're not all bad. But still annoying like randomly ringing church bells on Friday mornings.
Resolve

This is so bad. so so so so bad. Who in the hell gave the go to this commercial. It is terrible.Editing. Sound. Did an intern make this?Please lick the floor of the restroom.You guys get out stains, so stick to that.Because it's obvious you don't know how to make a television commercial without being lame and annoying.
Moving on.
Shame on your advertising department Target and Resolve.Shame on you for creating such perfect brain melting atrociousness. You are On my List of 100 People / Groups of People I wanna slap in the face.

Addendum by Marine: I thought it would be appropriate to add that there's one commercial on my can't-stand-it list and it's that Old Navy commercial for the long and lean flares. The song gets stuck in my head All.The.Time. Also, the commercial doesn't make any sense! Why are they bowling in platform shoes?! They're going to hurt themselves! Then it won't matter how 'long' and 'lean' their legs look in their jeans, because they'll be on the ground, and their jeans will probably be ripped. That's all.

It's almost the end of July...

2011-07-28T16:52:00.001-04:00

I'm sorry, blog, did we forget about you? You know, it was just so hot last week... the heat makes motivation extra hard to come by. Hence, we didn't really do anything worth blogging about. We tried to keep up with our walking as well as we could, but even that was too much of a task at times last week... it was just so darn uncomfortable! Last night was the first night in a while that we've been able to sleep without the air conditioner running. Yesterday it also cooled down enough for me to do a little baking!

I've made s'mores brownies before, but these are just as good, if not better (gasp)!
I whipped up a graham cracker crust using about 1 cup of butter and 1 1/2 cups smashed graham crackers, pressed that into the bottom of a 9x9 pan and topped it with brownie batter made from this amazing recipe. Baked everything for about 40 minutes then turned up the heat to 450 degrees, threw a nice layer of mini marshmallows on top and let those get nice and toasty. Once cooled, the result is a fudgy chocolatey center sandwiched between bouncy marshmallows and graham cracker. (Cute plate not included...) So yummy! I even had one for breakfast this morning...

This bread recipe has been on my recipe to-do list for a while now... and I finally made it! It's an incredibly dense yet moist loaf, and it's HUGE! The top of it almost hit the top of my oven before I noticed and moved the rack down...

It's slightly heavy on the molasses, but maybe I'm the only one picking up on that taste because I know it's there. I've been slicing it thick and slathering the slices with local wildflower honey or Nutella and sometimes strawberry preserves. It holds itself up well; this isn't a flimsy bread recipe!

If I remember, I'll post the recipe for this macaroni and cheese next week. I bought heavy cream, sharp cheddar, and pasta then went home and looked at a few different recipes to see what I could come up with using other ingredients I already had on hand. The result was wonderfully creamy and soft - not overly cheese-y and just the right ratio of sauce to pasta. I used orecchiette instead of the traditional elbows because that's all I could find and I figured it surely couldn't turn out badly (I was so right!).

Oh, we had a visitor the other day when I was making a batch of dog treats for an order!

We haven't had too many squirrel visitors this summer... certainly not the daily visits we got last year! But the smell of baking dog treats always seems to bring them to the window. Don't worry, we never feed the little buggers! The smell is just to entice them so we can exploit them for photographing purposes. Peanut butter baked goods always do the trick.

Farmer's market goods purchased earlier today... various heirloom tomatoes, a pound of zucchini, and some juicy yellow peaches.

Funny story! I actually went to the market with only $9 cash in hand, hoping to make the most of it. Once I noticed the tomatoes, I knew I had to get those so I picked out a small basket of them and asked for some zucchini because I knew Shawn would appreciate that more than tomatoes. All of that should have cost me $6 but the farmer said $5 so I happily set off towards the fruit stand with the $4 I had left. They had donut peaches (my favorite!) for sale but a basket cost $5, so I was $1 short. The woman standing next to me noticed them too and was asking the farmer about them, so I casually snuck in a "Oh those donut peaches are so good! They're amazing and sweet and just the perfect snack. I would get some myself if I had another dollar!"... long story short, the woman bought some donut peaches and I bought some $4 yellow peaches but ended up getting a donut peach for free because I helped promote them! Gotta love good peach karma.

...
PS! That donut peach was really tasty! Velvety sweet!
PPS! The thing that makes those brownies so good is the brown butter called for in the recipe. Brown your butter, people!

We interrupt your usual programming with...

2011-07-19T17:36:00.000-04:00

Just a few things from last week...

The last day off that I had was a productive one. I started the day off with a quick run around the neighborhood, cooled off for a bit and then made some whole wheat chocolate chip scones.

Scones are a very rare occurrence here (I make 4-5 batches of them each week at work already- it's just not one of those things I want to make when I'm at home) Hence, Shawn's excitement at my extra effort that morning. And I made a full batch so we still have a few in the freezer to be baked and consumed on other mornings! Hooray!

Apparently I was in a particularly bake-y mood that day because I also made a whole wheat loaf! Bread is also a rare item here because we only buy it when we plan on making burgers (or indulging in an artisan loaf on the very rare occasion); any other time we're craving bread I have to decide to make it. And making bread always takes time. Time is hard to find most of the time.

Oh yeah, and did I mention that I made salted caramel brownie sundaes?! Um, because I totally did. With homemade salted caramel and homemade brownies and, well, the only thing that wasn't made from scratch was the ice cream. (Shhh! We don't have an ice cream maker!) Indulgence at its best.

Aside from our yummy existence and my unusually motivated day off... that's about it. Sorry, we're not really all that exciting.

Also, if you haven't seen them yet, Shawn uploaded some of his old film photography to Flickr. All photos that even I'd never seen before!

Now I leave you with a fuzzy photo of a squirrel. Not the best photo, but this little bugger was watching me through our living room window for what seemed like for-ever. Squirrels are getting weird, man...

Dear Netflix

2011-07-14T09:09:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Netflix stepped over the line, and created a blatant foul.
Netflix walked right into our homes and bitch slapped us right in the face.(We stood there and wondered who is this guy in a suit?)
Netflix announced Wednesday that they will be increasing the cost of the DVD rental service.
Currently Marine and I have the 1 DVD at a time with Unlimited Streaming for 9.99 a month.
When we first signed up Netflix offered the combo package for 8.99 a month.
I guess the $1 increase on millions of customers didn't help them out.
WTF?
So now they are offering DVD rentals and Streaming as separate services.
each at $7.99
16 bucks now???
HELL NO!!
Like many other pissed off people in America, I plan on dropping the DVD option ASAP.
Not because we can't afford it. Just because Netflix does not deserve more of my money for offering me the same thing.
Why would you try to "fix" something if it wasn't broken?
I guess the CEO of Netflix wants a new private bathroom attendant to wipe his ass for him.
Good Show Old Chap. Good Show.
- The flowing is my open internet letter to Netflix -
Dear Netflix,
You are greedy fucking whore monsters.
From the desk of: President Shawn Hill

Virtual Apartment Plans

2011-07-13T19:51:00.002-04:00

One of my favorite computer games when I was younger was The Sims. I know I'm not the only one who can admit to this, and it's not hard to understand why... the game freakin' rocked! What other game let you build imaginary mansions furnished with all sorts of extravagant and eccentric furniture that you downloaded online and subsequently 'bought' with the all the money you 'earned' playing the game. (...I know I'm not the only one who frequently used the get rich quick cheat code!) Oh yeah, and you pretty much got to control people's lives too.

Seriously though, I used to spend hours on end creating homes and then furnishing them with great detail. I think I built houses more than I played the actual game. (I did the same thing with my Barbies too.... I'd build them extravagant 'homes' out of cardboard boxes that I had lined with wrapping paper and magazine clip-outs to function as 'wall-art'....) What? Didn't I tell you I was an odd child obsessed with creating imaginary and detailed furnished houses?

Well, my favorite childhood past-time was recreated in all its greatness the other day when one of the blogs I read (can't remember which one though!) led me to Urban Barn: The Make Room. And just like back in the day, I've been spending a whole lot of my spare time designing houses. Actually, apartments in this case. And the measurements are far from exact... but who needs math when you have virtual furniture that you can size and place however you please!

Behold, a floor plan of our current apartment:

(larger image)
Oh, I had entirely too much fun there. Yep, that's really what our place looks like these days! Some appliances are missing, like my kitchen aid mixer, but the program only offers so much! Aside from missing appliances, it's fairly correct.

You know me though, I can't stop at just one! After I drafted our current apartment, I made up the plans for an imaginary two bedroom apartment:

(larger image)
It's completely made up and only based off of the things we wish we had (a larger kitchen, wood floors, an office/studio room, and a patio with lots of plants). I could totally have made it super extravagant and added things like stairs, a six-burner stove/oven, a washer/dryer, and a jacuzzi.... but I didn't. But I could have!

And now I'm going to find something more productive to do with my time - because sitting in front of the computer for hours on end just can not be good for you. Psh... whatever, I walked almost three miles today to get croissants... I think I deserve to sit on my bum (and eat my bag of croissants!) - ha!

Open Door Policy

2011-07-09T15:19:00.000-04:00

Obama Returns from South America to find that the doors have been locked to the oval office. Yes The President has been "Lock Blocked". apparently his people forgot to let the house staff know that he was on his way back.
sounds like a lack of communication there.
In the photo you can see a female white house aide rushing to the door.Maybe she shouldn't have been blowing one of the secret serivce guys Bill Clinton style while Obama was away.

I'd like to imagine his first thought was "oh crap. don't panic Obama man. the cameras ARE watching you. don't make a TOTAL fool of yourself."
Another Touching Presidential Door Malfuntion is attributed to My Favorite George W. Bush

While in china. He tries to escape. I love his facial reaction. And the fact he admits he was trying to escape. Hilarious.
Maybe these two guys aren't so different after all. Lets hope Obama doesn't choke on a soft pretzel. That would be pretty lame.

July Happenings

2011-07-08T14:03:00.000-04:00

Hey-o! It's been quiet on my end round these parts... so far July has been a fairly boring month for us, for sure. We both had to work on the 4th (opposite schedules, of course) but where I was lucky enough to only have to work until 1pm, Shawn was stuck at the deli until 9pm... lame!
My co-workers and I got together for a small after-hours pot-luck at the cafe - there was homemade pulled pork, colorful cabbage salad with roasted peanuts and lime, creamy potato salad, blackberry shortcake with lime-zested whipped cream, strawberry brioche bread pudding, and shoofly pie. Unfortunately, Shawn missed the feast, but at least I brought him home a heaping plate of leftovers! Then we watched the fireworks from our living room television set; they were quite un-impressive this year, might I add.

So instead of a hearty post full of pictures and recanting of daily activities, I thought I'd introduce you all to a couple of new features I recently added to the blog!

We started a Walk Log so that you can keep up with our daily mileage, if you care to. The permanent link to it is at the bottom of the left sidebar. I've been logging our daily walks around the neighborhood for a few months now, and we finally decided it was time to do something with all that -otherwise useless- information, so do with it what you wish!

The other change can be found in the menu tabs, also in the left sidebar. We used to have a tab for Videos and a tab for Lists. I decided to move all of our lists over to Listography, and the Videos tab was futile because it was just a link that sent you over to our you-tube page. So I simplified everything and made a page with links to all of the other spaces we occupy on the internet.

In particular, keep your eye(s) on our flickr over the next few days/weeks... Shawn is going through all of his photographs taken over the last couple of years and posting them to flickr for a permanent spot on the interweb.... there are a bunch even I've never seen!

And I lied earlier... I can't have a post with no photos in it!
Here are a couple of dinners we've made lately:

pasta with baked tomatoes

potato and green bean salad

homemade wholewheat crust with zucchini, spring onion & mozzarella pizza

Happy July!

Pepsi vs. Coke

2011-07-03T12:27:00.002-04:00

When I first saw a clip of this ad on Facebook, I wondered if Pepsi was just ripping off the classic Coke Polar Bear Commercials.
But it seems that Pepsi is straight up mocking Coke. Pepsi is using Coke's classic winter / Christmas theme adds and twisting them around to make Pepsi the soda of the summer.
This is the best example of a company using another companies "branding" and using it against them.
I love these types of battles between two parties. The only other adds I love like this are political adds during election season.
Here are two of the new Pepsi adverts. Which I find cheerfully funny.
Introducing Uncle Teddy and the Party Gang

and this is the Pepsi advert featuring Santa, which I found slightly funny.Santa is on vacation and he's being naughty!

I am giving an A+ rating to the marketing guys at Pepsi for coming up with this one.
Pepsi just became the official soft drink of the summer.
Pepsi Time IS Summer Time.
What you think about that Coke?
Your move marketing guys.

p.s. - I love both Coke and Pepsi. It depends on my mood, the day, and what I am eating or drinking at the time. But sometimes I like Pepsi. and sometimes I like Coke. They are both great tasting Soda Beverages and both have their moments in my thirst quenching activities.

Censorship

2011-06-28T08:48:00.000-04:00

I have a question I suppose.
Does British Television Censor their programming??
Do they allow nudity and cursing?
Are there any guidelines?
Cause it's starting to seem like America needs to chill out on what we censored. (man)
We don't need to protect the children OR the adults.
How about we focus on teaching both children and adults about a little thing I like to call
REALITY??
Child Labor Laws are crazy!Put these kids to work and teach them the value of the dollar!
Also,If these kids misbehave. It should be acceptable practice to slap them.
No questions asked.
If you happen to be a "MOTHER" not paying attention to a child who has become unwieldy,it should be completely acceptable to slap that bitch as well as her offspring.

Really, all I'm saying is that I think we need to rethink what censorship really is

This Rant has been brought on by watching "Kitchen Nightmares (UK)" with Gordon Ramsay.That man says some of the best insults I have ever heard.
It is currently available on Netflix via the Xbox 360 to watch Instantly.
it is uncensored.which got me to wondering if they censor British Television or not.
That is all.

More Market Madness

2011-06-24T17:54:00.000-04:00

Farmer's market produce this week: lettuce, blueberries, scallions, potatoes. Along with a pound of buffalo and a pound of beef. Yep, there are meat guys at the market too!

First up: blueberry pancakes for breakfast. (with the berries I hadn't already munched on...) Blueberry pancakes look like little aliens to me... with lots of big dark eyes. But they're damn tasty! Tasty little alien pancakes. Shawn says they remind him of lotus fruit pods.
I'm sorry if you clicked on that link. Those are just creepy looking. (More aliens maybe?)

Next, we used up the lettuce in a homemade chicken caesar salad last night. We've made our own caesar dressing a few times already, each time using a different recipe. This time it was unimpressive and lacked flavor, so I'm not going to share it with you. Back to the drawing board next time!

This next photo doesn't actually utilize any of my farmer's market buys, but it's still a photo well worth sharing.

S'mores candy bars! Everywhere I look (ok, so maybe just at grocery stores and convenience stores) ingredients for s'mores are perfectly situated next to each other, calling out to you - buy me! make me! enjoy me! - seriously, every. freaking. store. Then yesterday I was reading my various blog feeds and came across this recipe for the simplest bars ever. So all day I had that recipe on my mind, but kept trying to push it back into the depths along with all the other fanciful things my bakerbrain stumbles upon and drools over. Of course we had to go to the grocery store later in the day to pick up a few ingredients for that caesar dressing... and guess what else was there!

Come on. I know you know this one.

Do I really have to spell it out for you? ... S-M-O-R-E-S!

Yes, a whole stand dedicated to the damn things. Right when you walked into the store!
The temptation was too much, and I really don't think I need to tell you what happened next...

Seriously? You're killing me over here.

I bought marshmallows, Hershey's chocolate bars, and honey graham crackers, and I made S'mores Candy.

THE END.

PS. I think I'll be making a potato salad with those potatoes and scallions tonight. Or tomorrow night. Either way, they're going to be made into potato salad. That's all.

A little behind...

2011-06-20T20:29:00.001-04:00

A whole week went by and no one told me?! ...
Here are a couple of photos from last week:

I had the idea of strawberry upside down cake in my head for a while before I finally made one. Different recipes for strawberry upside down cake started popping up on various food blogs over last few weeks, so I finally took the hint and made one with those farmer's market berries. The cake was also made with whole wheat flour and a little pineapple juice - a lovely combination of ingredients if I do say so myself.

Pasta with sauteed spring onions and green beans, topped with shaved parmesan. Our cheese grater broke a while ago and we have yet to find a decent replacement. In the meantime, we're just using a peeler to 'shave' cheese onto things.

Shawn didn't get to have any of this pasta... our schedule is conflicting 70% of the time (I've been working mostly morning shifts and he works in the afternoon/evening; we try to have at least one day off each week that we can spend together.) So I've been coming home to an empty apartment with an empty belly and conjuring up my own assorted mid-day meals the last few weeks. This one was most notable in terms of flavor - those spring onions really made the dish!

I also keep myself amused by baking things things I know will put a smile on Shawn's face when he gets home. That mostly means chocolate chip cookies; he's a sucker for those. I took it a little further though and baked a pie. A chocolate chip cookie dough pie. Intense? Yes. Delicious? Oh my, yes! Smile-worthy? Yes! A million times yes!

I leave myself lots of little notes, otherwise I forget things. (Who am I kidding? Even with all the notes I still manage to do an excellent job of forgetting things.) Sometimes, Shawn leaves me notes too. Most of the time, they're really silly.

You know what's not silly though? This pasta dish. (Yeah, we love our pasta over here, kay?) Not only does it have olive oil, parsley, basil, and parmesan cheese... it's also tossed with some vegetables I picked up at the farmer's market last week - lightly sauteed zucchini, chopped tomatoes, and some sweet corn. The best part is, I made enough for leftovers! Everything is better when you can enjoy it more than once.

On that note... you should go back to the top of the page and re-read this post if you want to get your fill. Since, it's the end of it and all. Sorry, no leftovers for you!

Nothing Better Than Fresh Bread

2011-06-10T19:49:00.000-04:00

A French-style bakery opened earlier this week less than a mile and a half down the road from us. As anyone who knows me well can imagine, I am pretty darn excited about it. If there is one thing I could wish for in this world, it's that everyone should have easy access to freshly baked bread. It's just one of many things the French got right when it comes to breakfast and food indulgence (along with cheese, champagne, and dessert), and I've never been able to understand why here in America people just can't seem to wrap their brains around buying freshly baked bread on a regular basis instead of heavily preserved 'bread' loaves that are made to last for weeks on end. Needless to say, I am beyond excited about having a bakery that can provide such things within walking distance.

I took a walk up there earlier today but was saddened to find that they had already sold out of all their buttery pastries (I was really hoping for a pain au chocolat!) and opted for a baguette instead. Can I just comment on how silly I felt once I realized I was walking down the street, baguette in hand, with a striped shirt and hat on? Way to perpetuate ridiculous French stereotypes, Marine!

By the time I got back to the apartment, half of the baguette had already been consumed. I must confess though, I shared some of it with my very happy co-workers when I stopped in there for an iced tea break on the way home. Then I sliced it up and spread a little honey on one slice, and some strawberry preserves on another... absolute deliciousness. I may not have gotten my pain au chocolat, but dammit, I made a point of enjoying myself none the less. The bread was crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and still warm too... I can't think of anything better for an afternoon snack.

Other than walking nearly 3 miles, I've spent most of my day off relaxing. I did a short yoga sequence upon waking up this morning, after eating some cereal with strawberries and catching up on some reading. (Yes, I'm still working my way through Life of Pi, but I'm almost done, I swear! Then it's on to something else.)

Here's a little collage for anyone who's curious about what I do at work:

(all photos except for bottom left are from yelp.com)
A few weeks ago we had a customer who drove a pretty long way to come to the shop because she had heard so many good things about us. Well, we gave her a demonstration of what we do and she took some really decent photos on her iphone which she proceeded to post on Yelp. So yes, that is my arm and hands in those photos! ...can you pour hearts on top of people's lattes? I can! And I can bake things too! Man, my life is pretty sweet.

Not to rub it in or anything... :P

Herbs and Farmers Market Season

2011-06-09T18:52:00.003-04:00

One week ago we took a trip to our local Target's garden center and picked out a couple of different indoor-growing-friendly herbs and a bag of soil. We also got suckered in by two lonely garden gnomes that were hanging out on a nearby shelf... they only cost $15 each so we couldn't resist. (And if you know anything about gnomes... buying just one when there's a pair standing there is completely out of the question. You don't want to encounter the gnome curse! Trust me, you're much better off leaving no one behind.)

What? Haven't we told you about our gnome collection? Yeah, we're those people.

The two colorful ones on the outside are the newest addition to the family. Gnomie East and Gnomie West were acquired from Home Goods last summer. The tall guy is the oldest Gnomie - I found him at another Home Goods a few years ago; he's the only one that has actually spent time outside, but one day we hope to have a real garden for them all to look over.

We picked up a few packets of cat grass to bring a little of the outdoors indoors. It's really simple to grow, and it grows super fast! It's a nice addition to the living room, sitting in a couple of small pots along the windowsill.

We planted some basil, rosemary, and oregano. So far, only the oregano has sprouted, but the basil is starting to peek through the dirt as of yesterday.

Although I'm not a big fan of the heat that summer brings, I am a huge fan of all the local fresh fruits and veggies that I'm able to find more easily lately! I picked up strawberries, cherries, spring onions, and honey on my most recent trip to the farmer's market.

On last week's trip I had picked up some strawberries and asparagus. Here's what I ended up doing with the asparagus:

I boiled it for just a few minutes, keeping it crisp and crunchy, and then I topped it with a simple lemon dijon mustard vinaigrette. We served them along side hasselback potatoes and pan-fried catfish. The potatoes ended up being undercooked but everything else was absolutely delicious!

We purchased the catfish from our local market, where we also bought some chipped steak from our usual meat vendor. Here's our take on the Philly cheesesteak: chipped steak with sweet red peppers and muenster cheese on a cheesy foccaccia roll with a little bit of honey mustard.

I'll end this photo-heavy post on a sweet note. How does a slice of lemon bundt cake sound? It's even better topped with fresh strawberries and hand-whipped cream. I know it's summer, but that doesn't mean we can't all indulge just a little bit!

Weekend Recap! One Week Later...

2011-06-03T11:03:00.002-04:00

Whenever I happen to mention to Shawn that I don't post on here as often as I'd like, or that the flickr is full of photos I've never gotten around to posting here, he always reminds me that I don't have to be so wordy all the time and that I can do mostly-photo posts every once in a while too. Well, Shawn... you have a point. (Shh! Just don't tell him I said that.)

So I'll try to keep it short this time. Key word in that sentence... try.

Here are a few things I've been diggin' lately:
- Pandora's Jurassic 5 channel (seriously, it's all music to my ears)

- amazingly delicious strawberries from the farmer's market (can you think of anything better than local produce? besides homemade cookies?? I didn't think so.)

- our newly re-arranged living room; we moved Shawn's keyboards back to our desk area and put the bookcase in it's place, leaving us with better defined 'office' and 'living' spaces:

- the little details in our apartment, like our various knick-knacks, french candy, and some new salt & pepper shakers for my collection...

- gin and tonics (um, the perfect summer cocktail? fo sho!)

- getting out of the house for a few hours last Friday for some Willie Nelson & friends action (courtesy of my boss, who ended up with some extra tickets at the last minute)

- the double rainbow we spotted after a short heavy rainstorm on our way home from New Jersey on Saturday - it was full on!

We also got to see a full rainbow arch!

- a Sunday well spent with a group of good friends; a few hours at Adventure Aquarium (because seriously, when was the last you've been to an aquarium?!) and a simply delicious dinner shared at El Vez. (traditional Mexican fare - I definitely recommend it next time you're in Philadelphia. Everything we tried illuminated our taste buds like a well choreographed multi-dance number.... if that makes any sense at all.)

There are a ton more photos from the aquarium on our flickr, and a couple of short video clips on our youtube!
Ha! So much for keeping it short and sweet... see what I mean? I just can't stop words from flowing through these finger tips.

Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

2011-05-24T21:31:00.001-04:00

At work we recently started carrying some gluten-free muffins from a local gluten-free bakery. Before we decided to order, the baker gave us a few samples of various baked goods to try. Lets just say, it was very impressive. The coffee cake melts on your tongue and the muffins are moist and sweet like you wouldn't expect. What really made my mouth water were the oatmeal raisin cookies - they were chewy yet crunchy and they contained the perfect amount of raisins, with a light hint of cinnamon. Absolutely delicious!

After thinking about chewy delicious oatmeal cookies every day since, I finally came up with my own. Here is my very non-gluten-free recipe for chewy oatmeal raisin cookies:

Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup raisins
10 tablespoons butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- In a small bowl combine both flours, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer beat the butter and brown sugar together.
- Add the egg and vanilla extract to the butter/sugar mixture and beat until combined.
- Slowly add the dry ingredients in, followed by the oats and raisins.
- Using a spoon or a cookie scoop if you have one, place balls of dough 1" apart onto your cookie sheet and flatten them down with your fingers.
- Bake the cookies 12 - 15 minutes, until the edges are golden brown.
- Let them cool on the cookie sheet for at least 5 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Enjoy!

Plant Friends!

2011-05-11T12:47:00.000-04:00

When we moved out here (almost a year ago now!!) we brought three plants with us that I'd already had for a couple of years, meagerly growing near the only window in my dark basement room. Sadly, only one of them survived the move. We had every intention of buying more plants, but every time we'd go looking for some nothing ever caught our eyes. Until yesterday!

Apparently yesterday was a very good day for house-plant-hunting because after a trip to Lowes, Home Depot, and Ikea, we came home with four new house plants!

Now our lonely Dracaena marginata, the plant on the floor there, has some new friends!
(from left to right) a Money Tree, an Aloe Vera plant, a colorful Fittonia, and a lovely bonsai tree!

close-up of the bonsai; we love the 'S' that the trunk makes.

close-up of the colorful Fittonia leaves

We still intend to get some more plants to help fill up the space, but for now we're happy with these new four. Also, the gnomes probably feel a little bit more at home now too.

Keeping Things Organized

2011-05-04T11:20:00.000-04:00

It took me almost a year but I finally got my side of the closet organized. Honestly, I don't know what took me so long, especially being the obsessive-compulsive kind of person that I am! Our bedroom closet has these wonderfully built-in shelves, but I wasn't utilizing them to the best of my abilities. I think I was still bitter about having to leave my wonderfully-built-to-my-needs closet at my parents' house behind (I mean seriously, have you seen IKEA's closets?!) - there was a place for everything!

The big push was when I saw the closet clean-up Sherry did over at Young House Love a couple of weeks ago. Her various bins and methods of storage inspired me to go to Target and buy a couple bins of my own. I finally got to the actual organizing part last Sunday while Shawn was at work.

The whole process took me about two hours, on and off. Of course, halfway thru project organization I realized that I completely forgot to take any 'before' photos of the closet, so I only have some 'after' photos to share. Oh well, my bad. Just imagine the same space, minus the fabric bins, with piles of various clothing on the shelves to the left of the hanging rack, bags of to-be-donated clothing on the shelf above the rack, and the shelf with all my jewelry had necklaces and things strewn about all over the place. A little sorting, hammering, and folding and a few hours later the closet looks like this:

New storage - yay!
I was originally storing all of my undergarments in that little green drawer unit that's underneath the built-in shelves, but it occurred to me that I needed to access those things on a more regular basis than my 'lounge' clothes that were taking up space on the built-ins; so I put all my undergarments in the new fabric bins I bought, and I stored away all of my tank tops, funny t-shirts, and pj/sweat pants in the green drawers. This keeps the mess on the shelves down, and hides all the clothes I don't need to see on a regular basis.

Sweaters, shorts, and hangers - oh my!
I took all the bags of to-be-donated clothing off the top shelf (they still haven't been donated yet, but at least they're no longer taking up space in our closet) and I moved all of my warmer weather clothing up top - my long sleeved shirts, sweaters, and bulky sweatshirts. The bin on the top-most shelf contains all my sports clothing and extra purses, and the pile next to it is all my shorts, since it's still not really warm enough to wear any of those yet. As far as the clothing on the hangers goes, I hung up all of my button-down shirts, skirts, dresses, and jackets, and stored all my belts on that nifty circle hanger from IKEA.

Jewelry all hung up and stored neatly, with plenty of room left over.
I think my favorite part of this whole re-organization process was my jewelry shelf - I hammered pins into the molding from which to hang my necklaces.... all 20+ of them. I honestly didn't realize I have quite that many necklaces! I guess that's what I get for finally organizing everything. I also bought a 3-compartment tray to store all of my earrings, bracelets, and various little knick-knacks.

Yay for complete closet organization! It has definitely helped me these last few days- putting an outfit together has never been so easy! And since we're already on the topic of style-related-things, I'm going to talk about my hair...

My bangs finally grew out to a more manageable length, so I've been spending a little time playing around with various hairstyles every morning. Lately I've been a fan of the ponytail flip, mostly because I'm getting sick of sporting a regular ole ponytail or bun all the time. I've also taught myself how to french braid! (only the front of my hair though, and it's still rough... I don't know if I'll ever be able to cleanly braid the back of my head.)

Shawn laughs at the amount of time I've been spending in front of the bathroom mirror lately, but there are a couple of more complex hairstyles I can't seem to get down quite yet: heidi braids, the fishtail, and these little twists. But there is one twist-and-pin style that I've finally succeeded at!

(see the tutorial at Hair Romance)
I actually did the twist-and-hairtie, because bobby pins just can't seem to stay put in my hair. Mostly I'm just proud of myself because I spent a decent amount of time trying to figure out what initially appears to be a fairly simple hair style, but proves to be something much more complicated (for me, at least). The twists would end up too high on my head, or one way larger than the rest, or they just wouldn't even stay put at all. But after much messing around, I finally struggled my hair into submission. What? I'm a girl; I never said I wasn't girly.

If that was too much closet & hair-talk for you, well, boo-hoo. No apologies here. Just let me bask in the glory of my clean closet and hair-styling-success.

Netflix Lovin' & Sweet Treats

2011-05-03T17:15:00.001-04:00

In case you haven't quite figured it out yet, we're huge fans of Netflix over here. Which is kind of ironic, actually, considering the fact that when Shawn and I first met he was working at the local video store and he absolutely abhorred the thought of Netflix, whereas I was preaching about Netflix to everyone who would listen (way before they even started their amazing Instant Queue feature... my parents were early-Netflix customers). It just goes to show you how opinions can change as you grow (...and how the need for things like video stores dies out after a while).

Netflix is by no means sponsoring us or this post (but they totally should!), so the real question is - why are we such big fans? When we moved out here a year ago and did our cable company research, we just couldn't bear the thought of spending $100+ a month just to watch tv whenever we wanted (especially considering Comcast is the primary option out here - we've vented about them before though, so I'll spare you those details). Cable-less but in need of some visual entertainment, we opted for a Netflix subscription instead. At under $11 a month for one unlimited movie 'rental' at a time and unlimited access to the thousands of movies and tv shows in their Instant Queue 24/7, we would have been crazy to pick anything else.

So what if we can't watch 'real' tv? The only good thing on tv these days is Wayne Brady on Lets Make a Deal anyway!

We'd make deals with Wayne all day if he wanted us to...
But that's enough 'real' tv jazz - back to the Netflix love. They must really love us because they have all of our new & old favorite tv series on the Instant Queue:

* That 70s Show
* Futurama
* The Twilight Zone
* Scrubs
* 3rd Rock From The Sun
* 30 Rock
* Dexter (unfortunately only seasons 1 & 2 so no spoilers, please!)

...and our newest favorite series of all: PSYCH.

Shawn Spencer, Burton Guster, and the occasional pineapple.
Yes, we're a few years late on yet another bandwagon, shush. The show is hilarious. And smartly done. The episodes are an hour long, too, so that's always a plus for us. The main reason we watch it though is because the main character - Shawn Spencer - has such striking similarity to Shawn... it's uncanny. The personality traits are almost spot on and they even got his physical appearance right:

Shawn = Shawn?
...Shawn even has a button down shirt in that same pattern and colors. Strange. We're still trying to figure out how they got a hold of all of Shawn's shirts, thoughts and quirks.

But enough about that; now that I've proclaimed our love for Netflix and our new favorite (old) show, lets get into food mode.

Remember this peanut butter 'dip'? Did you know that it's not really a dip, it's actually a filling for something sweetly addictive? Check this out:

Pretzel peanut butter chocolate dipped yumminess!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites

Ingredients:
1 cup creamy peanut butter
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
a bag of hard pretzels
4oz dark chocolate

To Make:
- In the medium bowl with a spatula or in the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the peanut butter and butter until combined.
- Scrape down the bowl, add sugars and beat until combined. You should be able to roll the mixture into balls without it sticking to your hands. If the dough is too sticky, add more powdered sugar until you reach a consistency that is easy to roll.
- Roll the peanut butter mixture into small balls, about 1 teaspoon of mixture for each ball, and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Sandwich the balls between two pretzels and place in the freezer for 30 minutes.
- Melt the chocolate in a metal bowl over a pan of lightly simmering water. Stir occasionally until smooth, and remove from heat.
- Dip each pretzel bite halfway into the melted chocolate and place on the prepared baking sheet. Chill in refrigerator until chocolate is set.
- Enjoy at your leisure! These keep best in the refrigerator or freezer.

Careful, they may be addictive. I should add, it's a quick and easy recipe that makes a great snack while you're getting comfortable on the couch watching Psych... or whatever your pleasure is. If you dig peanut butter as much as we do over here, you'll thank me for this one.

Oh April, where did you go?

2011-04-26T19:35:00.003-04:00

Hello there! How are you folks holding up these days? What's that? We've only posted once throughout the entire month of April??? And it's already four days away from being May?? By-golly, you're absolutely right! Hopefully a lengthy post full of mostly photos will make up for our disappearance. If not, then I don't know what else to offer you, because that's all I've got.

Mmm... peanut butter dip, of sorts. It's actually the filling to some (not so)fancy little snacks I'll be posting about later this week. It was pretty good as a dip too though.

Herbed potatoes and kielbasa tomato bake - made by me! It's my yummiest savory food attempt yet.

Homemade cheesesteaks with sausage, onions, and marinara sauce on focaccia rolls.
(Of course we made this for dinner on the same day I had a bacon cheeseburger from Five Guys for lunch while Shawn was at work... my stomach was ready to murder me that night. I guess that's what I get for getting a burger without Shawn.)

I've been on a cookie bar kick lately - these were with chocolate chips and easter M&Ms. Cookie bars are so much chewier than round cookies! The double chocolate & cherry ones I make for work have the amazing texture of raw cookie dough.

I made a lemon meringue cake for my brother's 18th birthday last weekend.

... I guess 18 is as good an age as any to get your first lemon meringue facial. The rest of the cake wasn't any less tasty. I'd even say it was better than pie!

And just in case you've forgotten what we look like...

A great candid shot of Shawn. It reminds me of film stills. I should throw some sub-titles in there 'A-Ok' or something corny like that.

Shawn actually managed to get a picture of me smiling! It's a rare occurrence, considering I seem to make funny faces every single time there's a camera in front of me. I have photographic evidence of these claims, but I don't feel like looking for them at the moment. We're actually about to head over to Five Guys for dinner.... don't judge me. Sometimes a girl just needs a burger... twice in two weeks.

Caught in the Act

2011-04-10T21:45:00.005-04:00

I saw this little guy scouring the tree outside our kitchen window for freshly growing buds... this is the only decent shot I could get of him though; he was moving so swiftly! He's not one of our usual squirrel visitors though - he didn't venture close to the window, and he wasn't as squat and fluffy as our regulars.

Check out the squirrel acrobatics:

(larger images on our flickr)

How about a quick game of catch-up?

2011-03-30T11:53:00.000-04:00

I know things have been a little quiet on the blog the past few weeks (save for Shawn's newly inspired bunny comics!) but we've both been keeping busy (...no, not just watching squirrels!). Lets break things down into a list, shall we? I love lists! Especially when they have yummy pictures thrown in too!

- Shawn started working again! He's working the deli counter at the popular local deli/restaurant about a half mile down the road. It's conveniently close to home and not to mention, the extra paycheck certainly helps.

Idle Hand Bars - original recipe from here, but I'll post my revisions soon.

- Despite Shawn going back to work, I didn't have much time to myself the last two weeks because I worked some extra shifts to make up for the couple of days I stayed home recovering from a cold. All work and no play makes Marine exhausted - hence, less time in the kitchen and on the internet, more time on the couch.

Homemade chicken caesar salad - yummy!

- I also never quite recovered from that cold... the new weather patterns brought that runny nose and dry throat right back around! Allergies were never a problem for me until about three years ago; now I'm affected each time the temperatures rise and drop dramatically. February - May are the worst on my sinuses.... not to mention September - October when the temperatures get fussy again. My nose can't take much more abuse!

Homemade pulled pork sandwiches on homemade whole wheat rolls. More about this soon!

- I've actually been working towards some of my goals for the year! I'm in the middle of reading Life of Pi (it was a slow start but now that I'm more than just a few pages in it's getting easier to sit down with at the end/beginning of the day - the two times my mind is at it's quietest). I've also stumbled upon a few patterns I'd like to try for my sewing goals... one purse pattern and a simple a-line skirt pattern; I just need to go buy some decent fabrics now to start the actual sewing process.

Whole wheat cheese straws, using Deb's recipe but substituting the flour.

- Here's a bit of a random question: do my fellow female-readers have any recommendations for skin-care products? I've been using products from Origins over the last few years but my skin tends to adapt and I need to switch it up again. Basically anything that will even out skin tone and also keep acne at bay (seriously, I'm almost 24 years old... why am I still plagued by acne?!). Any recommendations are appreciated!

- One final thing: Shawn and I recently discovered pauladeenridingthings.com, so I had a little fun with it the other day....

(See them in their full size glory over at our flickr)

Thanks for playing catch-up with me! Here's hoping April will be a little more eventful on the blog posting end of things. Get ready for some spring ingredients and more squirrel photos!

Oh Great Coffee Stain ...

2011-03-20T23:19:00.001-04:00

www.idrawbunnies.com

I'm fairly certain the chocolate is from some cookies.

Ultimate Loyalty

2011-03-16T19:30:00.003-04:00

A Japanese dog refuses to leave his injured friend behind...

Downloading...

2011-03-11T15:26:00.003-05:00

Breakfast Frenzy

2011-03-08T08:36:00.000-05:00

I intended to post these photos last week... before I got sick and food became an afterthought. That never happened though so here they are now for your visual pleasure - a frenzy of eggs, potatoes, and bacon... enjoy!

Good Ole Granola

2011-03-07T08:42:00.004-05:00

Lets start this week off on a lighter note, with deep breaths and clear nostrils, in spite of last week. And in my opinion, there's no better start to a morning than a big bowl of granola with a little bit of plain yogurt and honey thrown in....

Granola is super easy to make - it's just a combination of dry ingredients with a smaller percentage of sweet, wet ingredients. In the pastry kitchen I worked at, I learned the basic granola equation.

Ok, lets back-track a little - even though I've been actively baking for 3+ years now, it wasn't until last year that I really started messing around with the math aspect of baking and understanding the science behind everything. Just as is true of any equation, you need to understand the basic elements before you can start switching things around... I've only recently begun switching up ratios in recipes instead of just switching out ingredients. It's been a lot of fun and although my 'experiments' don't always turn out as planned, they're at least still edible and I'm learning new things in the process! Anyways, back to the granola equation. About a year ago the pastry chef I was working for broke down granola for me into four parts and percentages... bear with me here.

First, you have your dry ingredients. These should comprise of:

50% rolled oats and 50% combination of other dry ingredients
...including but certainly not limited to: cereals (puffed rice is common), nuts, seeds, shredded coconut, and of course some sort of brown or natural sugar if you're so inclined.

Now, the dry ingredients only make up one portion of the granola equation. You also have to add some wet ingredients in there - those are what make everything brown and crisp up so nicely. Your wet ingredients should comprise of:

50% oil and 50% liquid sugar
For oil it's generally preferable to use a neutral-flavored oil such as: canola, safflower, or vegetable oil. And liquid sugar would be anything sweet but not dry, try: maple syrup, molasses, honey, agave nectar, apple sauce... something of those sorts. (I think peanut butter technically counts as a 'liquid sugar' too.)

Still with me? There's one more part to this equation - how much of the dry ingredients do you use and how much of the wet ingredients do you use? A good standard to go by is:

5 cups of dry ingredients to 1 cup of wet ingredients

So if you really want to break it down, your granola should be:

40% rolled oats
40% other dry ingredients/mix-ins
10% oil
10% liquid sugar
___________________
100% granola

Also, keep in mind that mix-ins like nuts and coconut can be baked, but things like dried fruit and chocolate should only be mixed into the granola once it's been baked and cooled completely... otherwise, you'll just have a huge mess on your sheet pan, and no one hates a mess more than me! (I'm not kidding - ask my family and coworkers... I'm super obsessive compulsive when it comes to my kitchen space.)

I store my homemade granola in an re-used store bought granola container! It just makes sense.

So there you have it! Was that too much to take in for some simple granola? It makes sense to me, so I hope I explained it in a way that makes sense to you too. Granola is so versatile! But if you don't want to think about it as much as I do, here's the recipe for the granola I made myself last week - keep in mind that it's not overly sweet because I like to sweeten my granola as-needed, so add a little extra brown sugar if you have a sweet tooth.

Basic Granola

Ingredients:
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup sliced almonds
2 tablespoons ground flaxseed
1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 tablespoon agave nectar
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons peanut butter
5 tablespoons canola oil

1/2 cup raisins

- Heat your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Mix your dry ingredients together in a large bowl and mix your wet ingredients in a separate small bowl.
- Stir the wet ingredients into the dry until everything is well coated and combined.
- Spread the mixture out onto a sheet pan and bake for about 35 - 40 minutes, or until everything is nicely golden and mostly dry. (Sidenote: I also stir my granola around with a spatula every ten minutes or so to ensure even baking.)
- Let your granola cool completely before mixing in any dried fruit or chocolate. Store your granola in an airtight container and it should keep for a while! Mine doesn't last very long though because I like to snack :)

Miserable Musings

2011-03-05T22:27:00.000-05:00

I'm sorry for the down-trodden title of this post, but the last few days really have been fairly miserable here at the IveSeenSomeThings Headquarters. You see, I came down with a cold just about a week ago, and I'm only just now beginning to feel 'better'.

It all started with an ear-ache that turned into sinus congestion and then a runny nose that worked its' way down into a sore throat and phlegmy cough... for a day or two there I couldn't figure out which was worse to deal with: the congestion or the cough; in fact, I'm still not really sure because they're both about equally frustrating.

I worked through it the first few days but then on Friday I lost my voice and had to take the day off, and then today my voice wasn't much better so the boss-man told me to stay home and get better. The two days off to lay around and recover really did help (along with the other cold-remedies above...) my voice is still raspy and coughs abound, but in comparison to the past few days, I'm feeling much better.

Today was the first warm day we've had all week, so we did a little spring cleaning... we cracked open the windows and sanitized the whole apartment with sprays and wipes, changed the sheets to something a little more colorful and 'spring'-like, and we rearranged the furniture in the living room, again.

We didn't decide to rearrange the furniture on a whim though... there's one more part to this whole miserable week - after already losing our tv to unknown circumstances a few weeks ago, Friday morning Shawn's computer decided not to start up. After much frustration and fussing-around he's narrowed the problem down to the hard drive, but since he doesn't want to erase what's on his current one (hm, lets see: all of the music that he has made, all of his digital art, all of his photos from the past 3 years- basically, everything...) we need to see about getting a new hard drive.

In the mean time, we're now down to our third and final technical entertainment option: my laptop. Hence, we re-arranged the furniture to make it easier to hook up the laptop to the monitor without sacrificing 'computer' use. (And yes, that is the uselessly broken television on Shawn's desk in the corner, not a gigantic computer monitor.) Consequently Netflix also loads way faster on my laptop than it did on Shawn's computer, so Yay for that!

Decidedly, we actually really like the new living room layout. It's much cleaner than our previous set up and it's actually cozier too. Plus, we're kind of thinking it'd be nice to eventually get a new tv and keep this set up as is and put the tv in it's original location (where the printer is now). Then we can throw some beanbags behind the couch and Shawn can play video games while I watch Scrubs at the same time... oh, to dream of days to come. (And I'll remind you that although it may not appear as such, we do more than just sit around and watch tv all day... I swear!)

So this miserable week is coming to a much less miserable end, with temporary solutions (primarily cough syrup and computer monitors) and some colorful bed linens, hopefully next week will be a little nicer to us.

.
.
.

And now for something completely different! (& incredibly delicious):

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011-02-28T16:55:00.001-05:00

Since I make my money making pastries and interacting with customers over coffee, I get a lot of questions about the yummy baked things I make. But there's one question I hear more often than others: "How do you keep yourself from eating everything you make?" The answer is simple... when it comes to pastries, I have one weakness: cookies.

Indulgence in things like decadent cakes, pies, brownies aside, there is just nothing better than a freshly baked, still warm from the oven, ooey, gooey, chocolate chip cookie. I love making cookies because they're so versatile... you can tweak each ingredient for a varied effect and texture. One day I'd like to open up a bakery in a cozy place where we only serve cookies straight out of the oven... the only way they should be served.

These oatmeal cookies are a take on my beloved chocolate chip cookies - with a little extra brown sugar for some chew, and some oats and cereal for a little crunch.

Yummy!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar

1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup chocolate chunks
1/4 cup corn flakes

- Preheat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Beat together the butter and both sugars until light in color and creamy in texture.
- Add in the egg and vanilla and beat until smooth.
- Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl and then add them to the wet ingredients slowly, until combined.
- Add in the chocolate chunks and corn flakes, plus any other ingredients you have around (suggestions: coconut flakes, nuts, dried fruit, other cereals... be creative!).
- Scoop the dough out onto your cookie sheet and bake for about 17 minutes, or until the tops look cracked and golden.
- Enjoy!

The Real Double-Stuff

2011-02-23T10:36:00.002-05:00

Remember the other day when I teased you with this picture?

Well today I'll be nice and share the recipe with you. I don't think I need to say much about these cookies, I mean, it's an oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookie, what more is there really to say?

'Oreo' Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
1 stick of butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup of sugar
3/4 cup of brown sugar

2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup of finely chopped chocolate (mini chocolate chips would also work well)
12-15 oreos, or similar sandwich cookie varieties.

- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Cream the butter and sugars together until smooth.
- Add the eggs one at a time until incorporated, then the vanilla extract.
- Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl, then add all these dry ingredients to your wet ones until thoroughly combined.
- Stir in the chocolate chips, then form your dough into balls. I use my cookie scoop to make sure they're even, but you can use a spoon and your eyes to make balls that are about 1 tablespoon in size. Once you have all of your cookie dough balled-up, the fun starts!
- Take an oreo and use two balls of cookie dough to cover it; the best method I found was to put one ball of dough on top of the oreo and one on the bottom, then gently flatten everything between your palms and work/mold the dough down around the oreo cookie. After doing a few of them I felt like I was working with play-doh... and you really can treat it as such! Just work the dough around the cookie however you need to make sure the oreo is fully covered.
- Arrange your super cookies about an inch apart on your cookie sheet and bake them for 16 minutes, or until the cookie dough is golden brown and cracked on top.
- Let the cookies cool on the sheet pan until you deem them solid enough to move to a cooling rack, then let them cool completely. These cookies taste great warm, but they taste even better if you have the patience to let them cool down completely. (The oreos are more intact once the cookie is completely cool!)
- Enjoy!

Super Cookie: deconstructed

If anyone's curious, I used Trader Joes' Joe Joes instead of Oreos. But I'm sure you're not surprised.

Monday shenan-agains

2011-02-21T18:47:00.002-05:00

We don't have very much to blog about these days... life has been pleasantly quiet around here. The tease of warm weather did get us out of our winter funk and back to our (almost)daily walks around the neighborhood though... and the neighborhood squirrels are back in action! We caught one happily bulking up his tree-trunk nest the other day, and this morning I had one greet me at the kitchen window while happily munching on a bread crust... these squirrels keep us way too entertained.

I also got some happy baking in this weekend - it was my dad's birthday on Friday so I made a shaker lemon pie. One of my customers at work had made it not long ago and insisted that I should too, and since meyer lemons are in season lately I decided to go for it.

The pie was a w e s o m e. Not too sweet, not too bitter, just awesome. The butter crust smelled delicious while it was baking too. The pie was a big hit - we almost finished it off between four people, but I was able to save two slices for later before they got devoured too. I'll definitely be making it again (maybe soon, since I still have two meyer lemons in the fridge!) but I want to get a mandolin first, I just couldn't get those lemons sliced thin enough with our not-quite-the-sharpest knives.

Another meal worth mentioning is the beef stew Shawn made while I was at work Saturday afternoon. Even though we got it back in December, it's the first thing we've made in our new slow cooker! The beef was super tender and moist, and although we had no celery to add to it, the celery salt Shawn's mom gave us for Christmas worked wonders in terms of flavor. I can't wait to slow-cook some more stuff!

But back to the baking - I promised Shawn a chocolate cheesecake for Valentine's day (since food is our favorite gift) but I never quite got around to making it. So after devouring that lemon pie this weekend I finally started on the decadent cheesecake. I'm happy to say that Shawn was pleasantly satisfied - it has the texture of a light chocolate mousse cake but it's not too heavy on the tongue or stomach. Cheesecake isn't one of my favorite desserts, I'm a cheesecake purist and don't really want anything other than graham crust and sweet tangy cream cheese when it comes right down to it. But this wasn't for me, it was for Shawn, and I'm just glad he enjoyed it :)

On a closing note, check out our latest sans-tv setup. Shawn got tired of not being able to use his computer while watching 'tv' on the big monitor, so he set up a dual monitor system.... now we're really wired. Unfortunately, it's not the most attractive set-up, but it'll do for now. It makes us feel like the geeks we know we really are.

Until next time!

I'm such a tease...

2011-02-19T14:02:00.001-05:00

Oh blog, how I've neglected you for the last two weeks.... I may not have posted any new recipes (shame on me!), but I did manage to work up a new layout. It's clean and simple, and I like it. I hope you do too!

The last few days have been so incredibly sunny and teasingly warm - great walking-to-work weather, and also great photography weather - my camera takes such better photos when it has some natural light to work with!

All winter I've had to edit photos like crazy to bring out their color because otherwise they look like this:

So I was so happy this morning when I woke up to a sunlit kitchen and was able to take unedited photos of last night's cookie ventures and this morning's breakfast...

Is that what you think it is? If you're thinking oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookie, then you're absolutely right! Is it possible? It is! It is!

Green pepper & onion omelette topped with cheddar cheese and fresh smoked bacon from the farmer's market - that's a mouthful.

I'm sorry to tease you with such delicious looking things, but a real recipe post will have to wait until tomorrow! Happy weekend!

This Cat is a Real Cat Burglar

2011-02-16T10:31:00.000-05:00

CAT STEALS ITEMS FROM NEIGHBORS
This is by far the funniest thing I have seen so far in 2011.
This little cat named Dusty has some swagger.
He goes out at night and takes items of clothing, toys, and etc from the neighbors yard and brings them back to his house. I wonder who or what this cat was in a past life?
What a guy!

Making Lemonade...

2011-02-09T10:50:00.001-05:00

Yesterday our television made a decision no one asked it to... it decided it no longer wanted to function.

I came home from work to a very angry looking Shawn sitting in the couch with a magazine, across from a blank tv screen. To which I jokingly asked, "Is something wrong with the tv?", only to get a glaring 'look' from said angry-looking-Shawn. After a long pause he finally explained that the tv mysteriously went dark in the middle of a commercial break during Lets Make a Deal that morning, and every attempt to turn it back on since has resulted in a blank screen with a low buzzing noise.

Odd, considering the television is just a little over two years old... too young to be having that kind of trouble but too old to still be under any sort of warranty. We're upset, to say the least, considering we certainly can't afford a new television right now, along with all the other appliances on our wish list. Shawn's just happy it died after Superbowl weekend.

But why did I title this post 'Making Lemonade'? Because that's exactly what we did, despite the unfortunate circumstance. Shawn's an intelligent fellow, I'm happy to say, so he was able to make a temporary solution by switching out the dead 26" tv screen with my rarely-used 23" computer monitor that he subsequently linked up with his computer. At least now we can still watch things on Netflix instant queue (ah, Netflix saves the day again). We're not really sure where to go from here though.

Sigh... anybody have an extra unused television lying around?

Lists, Recaps, and Hobbies

2011-02-07T19:40:00.000-05:00

I've been keeping my word about posting at least one recipe per week so far this year, so I thought it'd be nice to give you a little recipe recap:

Fleur de Sel Caramels
Spicy Peppered Meatloaf
Peanut Butter & Honey Cookies
Lemon Loaf
On a side note, for anyone who's curious, we just finished up season 4 of LOST... and we're still just as into the series as we were season 1- but with a ton more questions now. And for anyone who told us the show starts to lose its' luster after season 3 and that the writers just threw the rest together, well, we think you're wrong. Everything is moving along perfectly, and all the side-stories relate back to each other in such a tense mysterious way... thankfully for us, we don't have to wait two more years to watch the last two seasons! Thank the Netflix gods.

And in keeping with the beginning theme of this post I have two more lists for you. I've let a few of my old hobbies fall to the way-side these past few years and I want to do something about it. I have big plans for this year! Ok, maybe they're not so big, but I have to set myself up for something I can accomplish, right? Don't worry, I'm not going to give up baking - I'd just like to spend a little more time doing some of the things I used to enjoy too.

So I'm giving myself two goals: 1. to finish sewing three things/projects by the end of the year and 2. to read at least five books by the end of the year.

(sewing inspiration)

Three sewing 'projects' I'd like to have finished by the end of the year...
- one accessory (wallet/bag/belt)
- one top (shirt/sweater)
- one bottom (pants/skirt)

Five books I'd like to have read by the end of the year...
- Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
- The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga, by Deepak Chopra + David Simon
- When You Are Engulfed in Flames, by David Sedaris
- Food Matters, by Mark Bittman
- The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell

Why sewing and reading? Because the last time I did either of this things with any regularity was well over four years ago. The last book I remember reading in full was The Book of Lost Things, and that was about two years ago... don't even ask me when the last time I pulled out my sewing machine was.

So this year I'm making a change, no, a commitment - the next time I find myself pondering what to do with my extra free time, I'll pick up a book, or plug in my sewing machine!

Liz Lemon Loaf

2011-02-05T14:21:00.001-05:00

Props to you if you get the reference in the title... this loaf has nothing to do with Liz Lemon, we've just watched a lot of episodes of 30 Rock the last few weeks and Shawn thought it'd be funny.

So without further ado, here's the recipe for the lemon loaf I've grown so fond of the past few weeks. It's really just a scaled down extra-lemon version of Deb from Smitten Kitchen's lemon cake, with a few little tricks to add even more lemon flavor. Enjoy!

Lemon Loaf
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cups sugar, separated
2 large eggs
1/6 cup grated lemon zest (approximately 4 large lemons)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup plus 1/8 cup lemon juice, separated
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup confectioner's sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons lemon juice

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease and flour one 8x4 inch loaf pan.
- Cream butter and 1 cup sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment until the mixture is light and fluffy.
- Add in the eggs, one at a time, and then the lemon zest.
- Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl.
- In another bowl, combine 1/8 cup lemon juice with the buttermilk and vanilla.
- Add the flour and buttermilk mixtures alternately to butter and sugar mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.
- Pour the batter into your prepared pan and bake for approximately 1 hour, until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Combine 1/4 cup sugar with 1/4 cup lemon juice in a small saucepan, and cook over low heat until sugar dissolves into a syrup.
- Let the loaf cool 10 minutes before inverting it onto a rack set over a tray, then prick the loaf all over with a toothpick and pour the lemon syrup over the loaf - it will drip down into the tiny holes and make your loaf nice and moist. Then let the loaf cool down completely before glazing it.
- To make the glaze, whisk together the confectioner's sugar and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice until smooth. Pour the glaze over the cooled loaf and let set before enjoying.

Getting Lost in Snow Days...

2011-02-02T11:11:00.002-05:00

The view outside our kitchen window last Wednesday.

Snow, snow, snow... am I right? We've gotten close to 20 inches here just during the month of January! I think we'll be looking at giant snow piles well into March/April... I'm just looking forward to some sunny days - it's been so grey out lately! And we haven't taken a walk in far too long... the sidewalks just haven't been very forgiving this month (snow turns to slush turns to ice turns to Ouch!).

There is one good thing about being 'snowed-in' though - as long as you're well-equipped with the proper food and movies, it's the ultimate day of comfort. I mean what's better than sitting around in pajamas in front of the telly and munching away on comfort food while keeping each other warm all day? It certainly didn't hurt our recent addiction... LOST. Yes, that's right, we're newfound LOST fans. Netflix recently acquired all six seasons for Instant Queue... Shawn was already six episodes into the first season when I came home from work last Tuesday and, well, it's all been a bit of a blur since then. Lets just say, it's now one week later and we're already a third of the way through season three (and each season has about 25 episodes). We lost ourselves in a snow day... har har har.

Tomato-pepper-onion pasta.

Don't worry though, despite all that, we still made some tasty food efforts too. Here's a peek at a few things we have in store for you:

Honey-mustard Chicken; a recipe adapted from our new Trader Joe's cookbook.

I'm finally going to post the recipe for this amazing lemon loaf!

And keep your eyes open for these delicious chocolate buttermilk cookies.

So tell us, how did you spend your snow days? and have you ever gotten immediately addicted to a tv series? The only other series that's ever gotten to me that way was Six Feet Under.

Peanut Butter & Honey Cookies

2011-01-27T08:22:00.002-05:00

Two recipes in one week??!! This is a new one for us. But I promised you at least one a week for the remainder of the year, and I didn't hold up my end of the deal last week, so now you get two this week!

Remember that peanut flour I bought back in October? Well, after one or two attempts at incorporating it into my chocolate chip cookie recipe, the bag just sat on the shelf for a while. So the other day after stumbling upon it again I decided to come up with a cookie recipe that would highlight the flour in all of it's peanutty glory. These cookies were soft but not crumbly and not overwhelmingly sweet... exactly what I was looking for.

Peanut Butter & Honey Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup peanut flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 cup honey

1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Combine both flours, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl and set aside.
- In a large bowl, beat together the butter, peanut butter, sugar, and honey.
- One the mixture is smooth, beat in the egg and vanilla extract.
- Then mix the dry ingredients in slowly.
- Form the dough into balls and then squash them down into discs, press them with a fork if desired.
- Set cookies about 1" apart on a cookie sheet (these don't really spread, so you can keep them close to each other) and bake them for 10 minutes, or until their bottoms are a nice golden color.
- Let them cool for a few minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

An (I've Made Some) Meatloaf Recipe!

2011-01-26T15:34:00.002-05:00

Shawn has made meatloaf three times now, and if I may use a cliche term, the third time is definitely the charm. The first loaf was made with a mixture of ground turkey and beef, and although tasty, we didn't like the lean-ness of the turkey meat... it didn't hold up well in a meatloaf. The second loaf was all beef - that one was tasty too, but something was still missing. So when we stumbled upon a 'meatloaf mix' of ground beef, veal, and pork at our local farmer's market meat counter, we just couldn't resist.

We bought two pounds of meat with the intention of making burger patties with one pound and a meatloaf with the other pound... but that idea went out the window once we got home and decided that we'd rather just make one giant meatloaf and have leftovers to hold us over for the week.

And so, the spicy pepper & onion meatloaf was born.

Meatloaf

Ingredients:
1 cup of chopped sweet onion
1 cup of chopped bell peppers (we used red and yellow)
3 tablespoons butter
2 pounds ground meat (we used a mix of beef, pork and veal)
2 eggs
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 tablespoon mustard
1/2 tablespoon crushed garlic
1 tablespoon worcheshire sauce
a squirt of chili pepper sauce
about 1/8 cup combined spices of your choice (we used dried basil, parsley, red pepper flakes, paprika, salt, and pepper)
3/4 cups bread crumbs

- Prepare all of your ingredients before you start anything. (It's just easier and makes putting the loaf together go much quicker.)
- Sweat the onions and peppers with the butter in a frying pan, you want to get them juicy so they add more flavor to the loaf.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine your choice of spices with 2 eggs, ketchup, mustard, crushed garlic, worcheshire sauce, and chili pepper sauce. Once everything is well combined, mix in your meat, onions and peppers, and then the breadcrumbs.
- Shape your loaf - we bake ours on a cookie sheet, you can also bake it in a loaf pan if desired.
- Glaze the loaf - it's what keeps it moist! Shawn used a mixture of ketchup, mustard, salt, and worcheshire sauce which he kinda painted onto the loaf.
- Bake it at 350 degrees until it's done! (for us that was 25 minutes, pull it out for a re-glaze, and then bake for another 25 minutes).

All the ingredients you'll need.

Sweat your peppers and onions.

Mix your spices together.

Mix mix mix.

Make your glaze.

Glaze it up!

P.S. Any other ATHF fans think our 'meatball' looks like meatwad? :)

Here's the recipe for the buttermilk mashed potatoes pictured above too:

Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds russet potatoes
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper

- Boil the potatoes until tender, about 15 minutes or so.
- Mash up the potatoes and stir in the butter and buttermilk; you can add more or less buttermilk depending on the consistency you're looking for.
- Season to taste.

Fleur de Sel Caramels

2011-01-13T19:19:00.001-05:00

If you follow the food blogging world at all you've probably seen this recipe (or variations) pop up pretty often in the past two or three months. It certainly intrigued me enough to try it when I first spotted it on Tastespotting. (ha ha ha, yes, I did.)

I think Shawn and I both feel pretty much the same about caramels... the store-bought ones are ok but not really worth spending money on, otherwise caramel is best as a sauce, and only lightly applied at that. But then I made these caramels and our opinions quickly changed as we gobbled them up, one right after the other, piece by piece, square after square, (ok, I think you get the point). And then we did it all over again when I made a 9" x 13" batch of them two weeks later! (Hey! I gave at least half of them away!) Seriously though, these are deliciously salty in such a sweet way, and the best part is - they don't even stick to your teeth!

Fleur de Sel Caramels
*You will need a candy thermometer for this recipe!*

1 cup heavy cream
5 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla x
1 1/4 teaspoon fleur de sel
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup corn syrup
1/4 cup water

- Line an 8" square pan w/ parchment and butter liberally.
- Bring the cream, butter, vanilla extract, and fleur de sel to a boil in a small saucepan then remove from heat and set aside.
- Bring the sugar, corn syrup, and water to a boil in a medium sized pot and let it keep boiling until the bubbles turn a light caramel color.
- Stir the cream mixture into the caramel and let it all simmer until the mixture reaches 248 degrees Fahrenheit, stirring often.
- Pour the caramel into your prepared pan and let it cool down on the counter for about 20 minutes, then sprinkle some fleur de sel on top and let the caramel cool completely.
- Once cool, cut into 1" pieces and wrap each piece in wax paper squares (4"x4").
- Enjoy!

It's already 5 days into 2011?!

2011-01-05T12:18:00.002-05:00

First of all, Happy New Year, faithful readers! Albeit already being a few days into it, but a happy start none the less.

Since we like to change the blog's look fairly often, I figured it was time for a new layout - the winter theme was nice, but the santa hats and mistletoe were no longer in season, so our first layout of the new year pays tribute to the 70's. Shawn wanted a 60s/70s couch type of look, and I think that has been achieved.

We brought in the new year with some tasty spicy tilapia and season 3 of 30 Rock (which we've really been into as of late). A nice relaxing New Years eve at home on the couch was an enjoyable contrast to my last two new years eves spent working in a pastry kitchen. Shawn and I actually got to kiss at midnight! Cliche, but enjoyable regardless. Once midnight hit and our neighbors finished setting off sparklers in the courtyard, we called it a night. (Geez, we're like an old couple already!) I had work at 8am though so a late night was not in the cards.

Neither one of us is really into making resolutions, but I definitely have a few goals I'd like to focus on this year... new habits I'd like to form, if anything.

In terms of the blog, I'd really like to start posting at least one recipe a week. We make so many tasty things that I hardly have time to keep up with it all! Recipes I keep intending to post get lost in a shuffle of other pages of recipes... and thus our blog is left fairly devoid of recipes, despite our 9 month trek into the blog-o-sphere. If I can kick it into gear, we could have 52+ recipes on here by the end of the year!

Another thing I'd like to do is start bringing lunch with me to work. I work in a coffee shop and although we do sell bagels and panini sandwiches, those aren't the types of foods that are going to keep me alert and energized throughout my 8-hour work day. Shawn and I eat a lot of bread and cheese throughout the week already, and I'd really like to bring more fruits and veggies and 'whole' foods to snack on when I'm not at home. Just because Shawn doesn't enjoy munching on leafy greens and root vegetables, doesn't mean I can't prepare a salad of them for myself to bring to work!

I'd also like to play around with more bread-making! I'm not quite sure what 2011 has in store for us, but I'm excited to see what I can do with it.

(30 Rock image courtesy of Yahoo TV)

Christmas 2010 Recap

2010-12-31T08:36:00.001-05:00

This year we traveled to New Jersey for Christmas to see both of our families. We got an early start on Saturday and much to our surprise hit absolutely no traffic getting there (which was probably a first for us if you've read any of our Journey to Jersey mini-series). This particular ride into NJ was probably one of the most peaceful ones we've ever taken - still quiet from the night before and the post-xmas rush hadn't yet started.

Even google was in the holiday spirit!

We saw my family first - my siblings and I played a few games on the brand new kinect (far too much fun!), then we opened gifts (far too many!), and after all the fun we finally sat down for a late lunch/early dinner.

It was quite the fancy feast - my parents made cod-cakes (just like crab-cakes but with cod!) for a quick appetizer, but the highlight of the meal was the beef wellington they constructed (that we all pitched in to decorate, as you'll see in a bit). Shawn had never had beef wellington before, and I don't think I've had it outside of my grandmother's house, and even hers aren't homemade... so this one was exciting, to say the least. We had green beans and pan-fried potatoes too, which Shawn convinced my dad to put a bit of smoked paprika on, to everyone's delight! A lip-smacking Christmas feast!

After digesting a bit with some coffee and a Trader Joe's buche de noel, (come on, what's any meal here without a little something from TJ's?!), we spent a few hours with Shawn's mom, catching up and opening even more gifts. (Seriously, families, you went a little crazy this year!) We headed home at a reasonable hour hoping to avoid any snow (thankfully the snow didn't start until Sunday morning around here) and got home just in time to snap a few photos of all our gifts under the 'tree' and then dozed off with full bellies and smiles on our faces. It was a wonderful 2010 Christmas!

Now for photos!

All the gifts lovingly wrapped under my parents' tree... so many!

Playing kinect - even Kusko was entertained. (The dogs kept messing it up with their wagging tails!)

My mom's pretty table settings only come out for special occasions!

Beef wellington, green beans, and potatoes lasted just long enough to take a picture.

We all pitched in to decorate the beef wellington!

Kusko has a bow! And hates us for it.

So Shawn reassures him with a hug. It looks a little silly anyway

And I got a non-blurry pictures of Luna- hurrah!

And lastly, all the gifts under our 'tree'... we were spoiled this year with so many great things! Cookbooks, cookware, yoga things, new scarves and sweaters, and the list goes on. But the true highlight of this year's holiday wasn't the gifts, it was the family time - it was the first time my family had been all together at the house in a very long time, and it was awesome.

I hope everyone's holidays were just as wonderful. Happy new year! See you in 2011!

The Two Week Wrap-Up

2010-12-20T17:09:00.000-05:00

It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas around here! Despite the lack of snow in these parts, we decorated the apartment with some colorful lights and hung candy canes off of our twiggy plants; I wish we could get a real tree but apartment living makes that slightly difficult. Maybe next year we'll get a mini tree and some ornaments; for now, a few holiday touches work just fine.

We also changed the blog layout to match the season; the autumn layout was nice, but we're craving snow! The new header image was taken last week on the one day we saw some flurries in our courtyard... the bow on the lamp looks so surreal - but it's real, I swear! (Unlike our santa hats and mistletoe) We had a very temporary layout up in-between too, if anyone caught it... it had squirrels and an American flag as part of the header... but it wasn't well liked by everyone ;) and it was only intended to be temporary until we could get some decent snow pictures for a new header anyway. So enjoy the new layout while the holidays last - because you know I'll be changing my mind about it soon enough anyway.

My parents' house is looking festive too- despite the lack of children around there this year, they still did a good job decorating the tree. And they had a fire going strong in the fireplace when we went over there for dinner last week, nothing beats that. We'll be going over there again for Christmas day, so maybe then I can snap a few pictures of the tree in some daylight! I love my mom's ornaments - they're from all over the world and mostly handmade - she has quite the collection. Our christmas tree decorations have certainly evolved over the years, but it always has a few special memory-filled ornaments hidden amongst its' branches.

The other reason we like visiting my parents this time of year is because the dogs are in full-furry mode! And yes, I realize there's only one dog in the photo above, but that's because Luna is elusive and any picture of her inevitably ends up blurred. Kusko smiles like a champ though.

Speaking of dogs, I sold my first bags of dog treats last week too! I also made some business cards and bought the domain www.mybarkbites.com because the mybarkbites.blogspot.com adress wasn't a very professional url. I also created a little button link to it for iveseensomethings.com... it's in the sidebar after the archives - check it out!

We also bought and received a few new things these past few weeks... a trip to IKEA yielded an interesting purchase - a cart for my baking supplies! It's on wheels and has three drawers that conveniently fit almost all of my baking ingredients and supplies. Shawn took out a shelf in the pantry so that the cart now conveniently wheels right underneath and out of the way.

One more new thing - my friend Alina sent us a waffle maker! Awesome! Of course we had to test it out the day we got it; I made my go-to waffle recipe (made with whipped egg whites - it makes the lightest, fluffiest waffles!) but I forgot just how much the recipe yields and it ended up making way too many waffles... so we ate a few with a little maple syrup and wrapped the rest up for another morning. I can't wait to try some different waffle recipes now that we have our very own waffle maker!

And now for the food portion of my post, since I know that's what you've been waiting for. First things first, Shawn's savory touch: baked fries (purple, red, and yellow potatoes boiled, then sliced and coated in olive oil and herbs and baked until crispy) and a side of crunchy but juicy pan-fried chicken.

I tried my hand at linzer cookies this week, strawberry-lemon linzer cookies to be exact. Pretty, but they need some more work - no linzer cookies on the holiday cookie list this year. And I've further perfected my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe! I was puzzled because the ones I bake at work in the convection oven turn out much flatter and crinkled than the ones I make in my oven... then it hit me - the convection oven bakes things much faster than my non-convection oven, so I usually adjust for the that by baking things at a lower temperature at work. But I never adjusted the temperature for the chocolate chip cookie recipe, so all this time I've been baking them at a higher temperature than intended. So I baked off a batch of chocolate chip cookies at home at 325 degrees instead of the usual 300 degrees and low and behold - they came out flatter and more crinkled, just like the ones at work! Note: Sometimes mistakes are happy little fixings.

Lemon is my favorite ingredient right now, but I'm not exactly sure why I'm on a citrus kick. I've been putting lemon in almost all of my baked goods at work and I'm really craving a nice tart lemonade. So last week when Shawn requested a 'lemon something' (yes, those words exactly) I made him choose between a lemon tart or a glazed lemon loaf, and he thankfully chose the loaf. (I really wasn't feeling up for making pastry dough and lemon curd.) Yes, thankfully he chose the loaf, although I'm not sure how thankful I really am because this particular lemon loaf is so moist, so delicate, so sweetly freaking-delicous, that I just can't have enough of it. I want an endless supply of this loaf and I want to share it with everyone! I am seriously considering nixing the holiday cookies this year and just making a lemon loaf for everyone... it's just that delicious.

There was something else I made recently that also had Shawn and I drooling and endlessly reaching for more... Fleur de Sel Caramels. Now, neither Shawn nor I are big fans of soft or hard caramels, but let me tell you a little secret... nothing beats homemade caramels. Most caramels are bland and hard but these are soft but not sticky and you can flavor them however you want! I put a little vanilla extract in these and a lot of sea salt. The salty-sweet combination is what makes them so irresistible.

One more thing and then I'm done writing, I swear! We made our own garlic bread - homemade whole wheat bread and everything! I'll post a recipe soon, but for now pictures must suffice.

Don't forget that you can see more photos on our Flickr!

Firefox ?

2010-12-16T13:15:00.000-05:00

Some times I like to look at websites in different internet browsers. I do this to see if each browser handles certain code differently.
Today I opened FIREFOX.
On the startpage.
Just below the Google powered search bar there is a link to a page.
This Link leads to a LIVE video feed of a "real fire fox"

http://tigertailfoods.com/wp/?p=1282

AKA the RED PANDA!
Can You Handle the Cuteness!
CLICK HERE FOR CUTENESS : http://firefoxlive.mozilla.org/