How Erin got her (baking) groove back

Hello, apologies for not blogging in forrreevvverr!  It's been a time of moving and transition and I honestly haven't had time for baking.  But now I do and I am back!  And of course I'm back with cupcakes.  Seriously, it's still me here.

I love to take pictures of food almost as much as I love to make and eat it.  And with my new fancy phone, I've been doing that a whole lot more :)  So a few weeks ago we went out to dinner in Walnut Creek and I saw this yummy confection:

I don't want to toot my own horn or anything but I consider myself a pretty good baker, therefore, I hate to buy baked goods anywhere when I'm pretty sure I can make it just as well myself.  Plus we had plans to visit a fabulous creamery for sundaes later that night so an additional cupcake would have just been too much (even for me.)  So I took this picture and made a mental note to look up a recipe for that.

Well, surprise surprise that mental note got buried until last weekend when I felt like baking and busting this baby out.  Yes, this fire engine red Kitchen Aid mixer is my baby.  I love it!

I scoured baking blogs for a yummy Brown Sugar Cupcake recipe and deiced to use this one.  (mostly because it only made 12 cupcakes.  I really don't need more than that around my lil apartment.)    And for the frosting I used this one.  Mostly because we share the same last name.  It was a toss up between brown sugar frosting and brown butter frosting.  I seriously took me a good half hour to decide.  Thank goodness I have friends that help me out by flipping a coin!

And the end product was delicious!  But seriously it's not hard to go wrong with that much sugar :)  But we all know my math skills are less than stellar so while I only made 12 cupcakes, I made enough frosting for 24.  Ooopps, guess I have to look for another project to use all that frosting...

Stay tuned and I pinky promise to be better about blogging now.  All four of my readers out there can now breathe a sigh of relief ;)

Food Across the Nation

Hello!  My name is Helen and I was asked to be a guest blogger on this cute blog.  After all. . .the little red-haired girl is my daughter.  I had the good fortune this summer of driving across the country from the East Coast to the West Coast.  And I love food almost as much as the little red-haired girl.  So I decided to take pictures of many of our local and regional meals.  We did have some incredible meals along the way.  Pictured above was our first stop in Philadelphia.  I have always heard about the yummy Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches.  According to another one of my daughters who has spent time on the East Coast, Geno's in Philadelphia is about as good as it gets.  Arguably one of the finest sandwiches ever!  Most folks in Philly have their preference - it's either Geno's of Pat's.  And oddly enough, the two eateries are right across the street from each other.  Ironically, both establishments had line about the same length.  Fun place to have a great sandwich in downtown Philly!  

 Next stop on our cross country trip, was Hershey, PA.  What a delightful little town.  It's located not far from the capital city, Harrisburg.  Located in the rolling hills of eastern Pennsylvania, the sweet smell of chocolate can be detected from many miles away.  We took a tour of the factory and enjoyed seeing how the chocolate comes from all over the world and is processed here.  Hey. . . don't you wish that these huge containers were actually filled with York Peppermint Patties and Almond Joys?!

 We decided to stop in Morgantown, WV before our stop in Ohio.  This is a cute little town in the mountains of West Virginia.  Breathtaking views from the mountain tops.  We did learn that actor Don Knotts was born and raised in this area and the town folks even named the main street in town after him. We had dinner that night at a nice, upscale restaurant called Madeleine's in the downtown area.  The ambiance was friendly and the food outstanding.  I choose the Risotto du Jour which that day happened to be mushroom with a sun dried tomato sauce.  Not only was it delicious but the presentation was nice.  

 As we traveled through Kentucky, we stopped in Clermont to tour the Jim Beam Bourbon Distillery.  Located just off Interstate 65, the minute we drove into the little burg, there was the pervasive smell of bourbon throughout the town.  We were pressed for time so consequently couldn't take time for the tour but enjoyed the beautiful countryside in central Kentucky.  

We have always heard about the wonderful barbecue food in Kansas City, but we weren't sure which Kansas City it was supposed to be - Missouri or Kansas.  So we decided to try Kansas City, KS, especially since that was about dinner time.  We got a recommendation from some locals in Kansas City, Missouri and they said the best BBQ fast food was at a fun place called Arthur Bryan's.  And you can see the look of delight on my daughter's face when she is about to eat a huge portion of Pulled Pork.  She is holding just one portion - I had another huge plateful to eat.  It was so tender and made an excellent sandwich.  Too bad this was about 9pm and we didn't want all that food so late.  So we saved more than half for the next day.  Succulent, tender pulled pork at Arthur Bryan's!  

We had stopped earlier in Missouri and talked to some locals who found out we were driving across Nebraska on our way to Denver.  They impressed upon us that we really needed to stop in Paxton, NB at this roadhouse called Ole's.  Not only was the food impressive (delicious home cooking), but they had the largest collection of stuffed animals I have ever seen.  Including the fictional animal, the Jackalope.  I bet you have never seen one of these guys hanging from a restaurant before.  Quite a sight to be sure!  While I traveled most of the way across America by car (actually 2,800 miles) with my husband and daughter, I needed to fly home from Denver.  My experiences driving that distance, seeing most of America and spending time with my family is something I will always treasure.  I'm just grateful I was able to taste and experience such wonderful regional foods.  I hope you might be able to travel across our country at one time in your lives.  

Festive Fourth Food

I like holidays.  I like food.  And I like cooking.  This combines those loves.  So while this isn't a super fancy (ok, it's not fancy at all) meal, it's very festive.

The Fourth of July is also kinda a fun holiday for me because it's a very historical day too.  I was a US History major in college and especially love anything to do with the Revolutionary War.  I definitely imagine I would have been a patriot because the red coats of the British would have just clashed with my hair too much.  I could go one and on about history stuff but let me take it back to the food.

Breakfast today was blueberry pancakes with strawberries on top!  Simple, standard Bisquick pancake mix with handfuls of blueberries baked right in and then fresh strawberries right on top.  It doesn't get much better than that :)

Hope everyone enjoys their Fourth of July!

What a Hoot!

Since I haven't been baking in a while (sad face) it's a good thing I have some pretty creative friends and I can showcase their talents.  I am lucky because my besties are pretty fun and awesome too and like to hang out with me.  Well a few weeks ago it was my friend Briana's birthday (I won't say what b-day) and her sis, Cameron, made this sweet cake:

That's right folks, it's a cake in the shape of an owl!  Bri likes owls so it's kinda perfect.  Cam baked cakes in glass bowls and then put the two half spheres together, frosted it, decorated it and bam! we had an owl.  I really kinda like this view of the cake.  And not only is it super cute and creative but it was yummy too!  I just had to share because it's still one of my fav things of the moment

Cameron, can you please visit for my birthday?  My fav animal is a manatee...start researching :)

Love this cake and these girls!

Happy Father's Day!

I was lucky to be able to spend father's day this year with my dad and grampie - two great men in my life who I love dearly.

My dad is kind, patient (necessary when raising 3 girls) and always there for me.  From researching papers for me to always slipping me a twenty dollar bill when I was a broke student to being my travel agent to instilling in me a love of history and reading and so much more.  I was fortunate to carpool with my dad to and from work for almost two years and those are times I will always treasure.  Thanks for everything Dad!

I also have a wonderful grandfather whose love and support for me is never ending.  I love spending as much time as I can with my grandparents and was lucky enough to go to college near them and travel with them as much as I do.  As my grampie turns 86 tomorrow he continues to be a fantastic example to me and all my cousins of an active person who stills bicycles with us and works on his iPad everyday.  Thank you Grampie for all the fun times and memories!

Little Treats

The other day my friend Ali and I reunited over a lovely tapas dinner.  Now tapas are fantastic!  They are little plates of yummy food so you order a bunch and share and drink some wine and have a wonderful time.  (I tell you, those Spaniards are on to something: lots of little plates of food and siesta (nap) time everyday.  I'm so on board!  Perhaps it's time I take a trip to Spain...)

So much fun to catch up with my wonderful red headed twin!  Who woulda thought there'd be this great little place in GB?  It's a lil pricey but a great place for a celebration, which we had - we hadn't seen each other in about a month!  We had the best time chatting over wine and tapas instead of our usual fro yo :)

Anyways, we ordered four different plates to split and I am blogging about two and Ali on her fun blog will write about the others!  And honestly my memory is fading in my old age so if my descriptions aren't very well, descriptive, then I apologize but I ate this awhile ago!

So we started off with tasty lil skewers of fig, (I think) goat cheese and proscuitto.  Now I'm not usually a fig eatin type of girl (I blame it on my mom feeding us too many Fig Newtons when we were kids - they are not a cookie or dessert and never will be!) but when it's paired with something yummy, I'm down.  And of course when you throw in cheese and cured meat who in their right mind would say no?

Next up was lamb tenderloin pops.  Little balls of delish lamb fried up?  Si por favor!  It was hard not to try and pop a dozen of these in my mouth but I had to refrain because there were only four and my momma did teach me to share.

And don't you just love the presentation?  Seriously sometimes food looks almost too pretty to eat.  But just almost.

Redheads Are NOT Going Extinct

No, I didn't find some new scientific study to back this up but this was just the conclusion that a fellow redhead and I came to on our walk to work.

After passing two other redheads while leaving BART I ran into a third lovely redhead woman (30ish, gorg complexion, tall and beautiful long (jealous!) red hair) who complements me on my hair and we start chatting.  For a good 10 blocks!  We both discussed how everyone tells us that redheads are going extinct but we see them everywhere.  And no we aren't talking about all those bad dye jobs 'cause we can spot a fake.  We had such a good convo about how much we love being redheads.  Now I don't mean to sound conceited but I have totally come to love my hair.  It makes me stand out, it helps people to remember me (seriously I still think people from college would prob call me the Alpha Chi with red hair), it's a conversation starter and helps substantiate my love of being Irish!

So this post really has no point other than to say, "yay redheads!" because sometimes we can get made fun of.  Probably because you're all just jealous ;)  But it was lovely to talk to another redhead and she was definitely a kindred spirit (please tell me some red haired girl got this Anne of Green Gables reference!)  And there are some pretty cool redheads out there: Ariel, the little mermaid, Anne of Green Gables, Nancy Drew...and now onto some real people: Prince Harry (my future hubs), Julianne Moore, me (hahah jk)

So whether you call us red, ginger, daywalker, gorgeous (thank you homeless man under the overpass - I do appreciate your compliments!) or whatever...I highly doubt we are going extinct.

(obv, I love being a redhead...it's in my blog title!  It's reference to the little girl Charlie Brown was always in love with.  He had good taste!)

You run like a girl!

Last weekend my mom and I and about 4,000 other women ran in the Women's Fitness Festival 5K in Sac.  This was a fantastic race for many reasons: a. It was sponsored by Kaiser, Whole Foods, Nike and Blue Diamond Almonds so there were some sweet freebies to be picked up, b. It was a ladies only race and women are so sweet to run with, c. it was with my awesome momma! and I'm sure there are more reasons but lastly d. it was around the state Capitol and through the beautiful tree lines streets of Sacramento:

(Seriously, I'm gonna miss this about Sacramento.  Oh those trees!  They don't call it the City of Trees for nothin...)

But it was an awesome race because 4,000 women were out there running and getting fit!  I love seeing that.  Whether you are running to train for a harder race or to get the free breakfast at the end (holla) or just to be social or because you heard that the t-shirt fits really well and is cute (totally!) then GO YOU!  This race combined some of my fav things: running, women's issues (WEAVE was the beneficiary), fun people and Whole Foods.  Can't wait for next year...

Wined and Dined

So Sacramento just had their annual Wine and Dine week.  I love when cities do this - prix fixe yummy menus at various restaurants in town.  It means that I can go to a fancy schmany restaurant that I normally wouldn't go to and get a fabulous three course meal for a great set price.  

I went to Ella with some sorority sisters last week.  I've always wanted to go to Ella because it looks so pretty and fancy and it was!  We had a delish meal and some fun times.  And of course I took picture of my food!

Course #1:

English Pea Soup

Fines Herbes Crème Fraiche and Tiny Greens with House Smoked Salmon 

So I normally don't like split pea soup but this English pea soup was great!  Especially with the smoked salmon.  And the color!  I wish I had a coat in this color green :)

Course #2:

Fines Herbes Gnocchi 

Crispy Prosciutto, Parmesan Cream, Vegetable Ragout, Poached Farm Egg 

Seriously how can you go wring with gnocchi?  You can't.  Lots of veggies, the surprise egg on top (guess I shoulda read the menu better) and again with the beautiful green!

Course #3 (dessert!):

Strawberry and Rhubarb Crumble with Vanilla Ice Cream

Ok, I gotta say that this wasn't my favorite.  Yes it looks cute and was good but this was my first time eating rhubarb and I'm not quite on the bandwagon.  Sorry.  But the strawberries were obvi delish!

All this with a lovely glass of local Malbec and I was happy.  Thanks for a fun dinner ladies!

Zivily!

I recently went on a bicycle and boat trip to Croatia.  Yes that's right, I rode about 15 miles/day and exercised as part of my vacation and here's the kicker: I loved it!  Really.  And this from the girl who probably hasn't ridden a bike more than a handful of times in the past 10 years.

But Croatia is such a beautiful country and seeing it by boat is definitely the way to go.  Croatia has about 1,200 islands along its coastline - give or take and depending on what you consider an island.  The water is a spectacular and clear blue/green, the hillsides pretty, lush and green and the villages: so freakin' adorable!

I mean this isn't a bad view to wake up to every morning.

Plus the more miles you bike in the day and the more hills you climb, the more gelato you can eat and not feel guilty about it at all!  Seriously, the gelato a day rule was strictly followed.

Croatia is beautiful and historic so this vacation was really up my alley.  It's always so crazy for me to visit places in Europe (or really anywhere outside of the US) and realize just how much older their history is than ours.  I mean the Greeks and Romans were in Croatia!  It's kind of at an unique crossroads between conflicting areas in Europe.

Quick lil geography lessons for those of you don't know where Croatia is: (don't worry, I didn't know until I went there the first time three years ago.)

It was also interesting to still see homes and buildings that were bombed out or had bullet holes in them from the terrible Balkans conflict and genocide in the 1990s.  A time that was so recent!

But it is still so breathtaking!

Yes, I took a picture of my breakfast because 

a. I love breakfast!  

b. This is a very standard breakfast of rolls, nutella, meat, cheese, yogurt, museli, etc and I think it's interesting to note.  A little bit different than my standard cereal or eggs bene but still delicious.

But our days mostly consisted of biking anywhere from 10-15 miles in the morning.  And yes there were hills.  I was told that this trip was rated "moderate."  Whoa, I would hate to see a trip rated "difficult"!  It's a good thing our guides only knew the heights of the hills is meters and I am too bad at math to convert it to a number I understood.  Ignorance was definitely bliss!  So I walked up little bits of the hills - I decided it was a much better way to take in the scenery ;)

Then we would tour around the port cities during the afternoon and evening.

This was our lovely boat, the Romantica.  Very romantic for traveling with my fam. haha

But they are so much fun to travel with!  I am lucky to have such an awesome and wonderful family who have actually been taking these bike and boat trips for years.

And really nothing is more inspiring and wonderful than my grandparents, in their 80s, biking alongside us too.

Oh and zivily means "cheers" in Croatia.  It's the only Croatian word I remember.  I know, so out of character for me :)

When life hands you lemons...

you can make a whole lot more than lemonade.  Recently I have had a whole lotta lemons and surprise, surprise I decided to bake with them.  I have also been on a blueberry kick since being in Croatia and drinking blueberry tea and eating blueberry gelato (what up, antioxidants!) so these recipes combine my two recent loves.

It's actually funny because I used to hate anything lemon.  But I read somewhere that your taste buds change every 7 years.  (Disclaimer: I "read" and "hear" a lot of facts and sometimes don't remember them quite right so don't quote me on this.  It's like one theory I heard that red heads can tolerate pain more than other hair colors but then someone else don't me we handle pain worse.  I'm totally going with the former theory.  But I'm off subject, sorry!)  Anyways, moral of the story: I'm super glad I gave lemons another chance.

Here is my healthy lemon blueberry muffin recipe.  Except I used half whole wheat flour, added more lemon zest to the muffins and didn't do the icing - too messy.

Then it was my dear cousin, Ne's birthday and I (obvi) was in charge of dessert.  Now I love Ne but we are a lil different.  Case in point: she isn't a huge dessert fan (!) and she remembers the time I cried when I found out there wasn't dessert one night after dinner - tragic evening.  So the pressure was on to find something she would like and I came to the conclusion of cheesecake.

Now this lemon curd marbled cheesecake comes from my Auntie but I added the blueberry sauce (taking out the nutmeg, adding more lemon juice and adding cornstarch to thicken it up.)  This was my first time making cheesecake and my second (and thankfully better) time at conquering lemon curd.  And I don't mean to toot my own horn but it was delicious.  Even Ne thought so ;)

Plus yellow and blue are such pretty, pretty colors together whether it be a kitchen, wedding or food! 

Spring Fling

Ok, so strawberries always say spring to me and luckily they are now readily available at the farmer's market and local neighborhood strawberry stands!  They are only around for a short time so you must take advantage.

And as delish as they are to just eat plain they are also great to bake with.  I know, shocking I would think to bake! :)  But I made a strawberry cake and it was yummy!  So yummy in fact that it was gobbled up before I was able to take a picture.  Lo siento!  But no worries because I found it on this blog and their photog skills are much better.  Enjoy!

Southern Hospitality

In addition to baking I also love to travel.  So my sisters and I decided to take a lil road trip from Florida to Virginia.  You all might think we're a lil crazy to just fly in from around the country to spend a weekend driving over 800 miles.  But we said, why wouldn't we do this?  We get to visit new places and spend three days with our favorite people!  Oh, and my family has quite an intense competition to see who can visit all 50 states first so this trip allowed some of us to get new states (sadly I'm losing this little game...looks I need to step up my traveling!)

So after quickly getting out of Florida we aimlessly drove along the Georgia coast and quickly realized that we were definitely no longer in California.  The beautiful lush landscape, number of Confederate flags and gun shops gave that away.  But no worries we were on a mission to get to Savannah where we shopped and wandered around the super cute town. 

Oh and wanna know a great thing about Savannah?  Open container laws.  You can walk around with an open drink in your hand as you stroll the streets.  So we did, obvi.  Fantastic!

Pretty waterfront

Then it was up to Charleston to party!  Apparently coozies are a big thing in the South.  Yeah, we didn't know that either but I will admit they are fantastic for keeping your drink cool and can be very fun.  Thanks for helping us out and lending us some Jeannie!

And what would a Saturday be with out a bottomless mimosa brunch?  You seriously can't go wrong with those three words.

Oh and a little helpful hint: mimosas are even tastier (and prettier) if you throw in a lil bit o cranberry juice!  See how much I'm enjoying it?  We need a name for the drink.  Perhaps calling it the Chucktown?  We'll work on it...

Yay brunch crew!

Charleston is a great city!  They even let you wade it their fountains but at your own risk. :)

It is also a beautiful, classic and historical city (kinda like a Southern Nantucket, if you will) and I regret not taking more pics of the architecture.  It's super purdy, I swear!

Then it was off to the Firefly Distillery.  And if you've ever talked to me for even just a sec you know that I adore sweet tea vodka.  Well folks, this is where the make some pretty tasty sweet tea vodka so it's not hard to guess that we were all quite happy here!  And they have soooo many more varieties that I cannot find in California.  Sadness.

But it was a verrrrrry fun experience here.  See above how happy we are? :)

Then rooftop drinks!

We eventually did make it through North Carolina and up to Virginia but that was a long drive that none of us really remember.

All in all it was a fantastic weekend - great sisters, fantastic towns, good friends, tasty drinks and beautiful weather - I'm ready to go back!

Oh and looking back at this post it appears that in addition to baking and traveling apparently I love drinking.