Cooking Light

I am more of a baker than a cook. I've decided it's probably because I love sweets and in baking there are exact measurements that must be followed to a science for things to work out. I like order and precision. What can I say, I'm an oldest child.

So this recipe is a lil different for me but I want to work on my cooking skills and have them include something other than creative (or not) grilled cheese. Also I subscribe to Cooking Light magazine and it's a shame for me to only look at the gorgeous photos every month and not do something with them. So I will now make at least one Cooking Light recipe per month!

Onto the recipe. Here's what it's supposed to look like:

Now I picked this recipe for a few reasons: a) I like beer so cooking with beer must be tasty too, b) I had all the ingredients on hand and c) well it just looked good and simple.

I served it with fresh green beans from the farmer's market (bless you California and your loads of local produce) and orzo (because it's cute and I've never made it before. Yes cute was part of my thought process.)

All in all I thought it was a delicious recipe and the roomies even agreed!

Oh and here's the recipe: http://m.myrecipes.com/details/searchR.rbml?id=50400000122903.xml&bcat=search&cat=Search%20Resultt

It only happens every four years...OLYMPICS!

I still remember the summer of '96 and being glued to the TV watching the Magnificent Seven wow the world as they won gold in gymnastics.  That is still probably my favorite Olympic moment.    Awww, those were good times.

Well we just moved to a new place and ambitiously decided to throw an open house party on the same night as the Olympic opening ceremonies (get it, London is opening up the Olympics to the world and we are opening up our new apartment to, well a slighter smaller crowd, our friends.  And of course what would a party be without baked goods (especially because with our new roomie with have not one but TWO Kitchen Aid mixers!)?

So here is our dessert buffet:

We were trying to think of a clever way to display the Olympic colors and theme.  Here's the deal:

Blue = Blueberry Boy Bait (with some extra blue coloring on top)

Yellow = Lemon Bars (a family recipe)

Black = Triple Chocolate Cookies (with macadamia nut Hershey kisses because they are just oh so yummy!)

Green = Funfetti Cupcakes (ALWAYS a good idea) with green cream cheese frosting

Red = Red Velvet Whoopie Pies because I can't not make whoopie pies with cream cheese frosting.

I hope you find some fun ideas to throw your own Olympics party!

Party Cake!

June 4th is a big day in my family.  It's my parent's anniversary and my twin sister's birthday and nothing for me.  But that's ok because that means I get to plan a celebration and bake so that's alright with me. :)

This year we did a family get together at our apartment in the city.  Unfortunately only one twin was there as Alli is in Denver but she was there is spirit.  As much as we missed Allison this meant that I could make a dessert just for Jeannie.  Well growing up Jeannie LOVED colors so when I saw this rainbow cake a few months ago I pinned it and knew I had to make it for her birthday.

You start off with a basic white cake and then split the batter into six containers and dye each one.  I did the colors of the rainbow but I suppose you could do any color combo.

The finished product is below.  My colors didn't spread out as much as I wanted but I think I just have to shake the pans a little bit more or spread the batter more with a scraper.

But it still looks good and more importantly it was delicious!

Ta Da!  And I frosted it with a tasty tasty frosting.  And even decorated.

Happy anniversabirthary!!!

Happy 25th birthday little sister!!!

And yay for a great family dinner.  Thanks to bay area cousins for coming to celebrate!

Blueberry-Buttermilk Scones

Every Thursday I work from home.  I love it.  I can work in my pajamas, sleep in a little bit and bake!  I usually try and bake something every Thursday but sometimes it's tough to decide what to bake so I need to look for inspiration.  This Thursday we went to breakfast and the place had an open kitchen and I saw someone using a pastry blender to make something yummy so I decided I needed to make scones.

But before I get to the recipe let me talk about my breakfast.  First of all, we went to Mama's on Washington Square.  It's a very popular and place.  Case in point: we got there at 8:15 am and still had to wait for 30 minutes.  But it was worth the wait.  I had delicious chocolate cinnamon french toast with fresh fruit.  My socks?  Rocked right off!

But now onto the recipe.  I usually make muffins or something on the healthier side but sometimes you just want a baked good in the morning that has a little more butter in it (not Paula Deen style but more than nothing) so these scones fit the bill.

I used this recipe from one of my favorite blogs.

First you mix all of the dry ingredients together:

Then you take cold butter and cut it into small pieces:

Now using a pastry blender and cut the butter into the dry ingredients like this until it resembles a crumb like substance.

Kinda like this:

Now you add the blueberries.  So it makes it a lil healthier.  Woo woo antioxidants!

Mix in the wet ingredients and stir until just combined.  You'll knead it out next and pat it into a circle.  Some of the blueberries will pop as you knead but that cool.  I was afraid that my scones would turn a little purple but they don't.

After this you'll cute the scones into 12 pieces.  I like to make them into triangles but you can do whatever shape.

I then sprinkle them with sanding sugar.  Basically bigger pieces of sugar.  You are supposed to first brush the scones with a beaten egg.  Unfortunately I only had one egg on hand and I had to use it in the scones.  I know, I know a baker only having one egg on hand is kinda like me not having flour in my cupboards (but not worry I have 5 types of flour in my kitchen and I don't think that's overkill :)

Now bake 'em!

They came out nice and golden brown.  And of course I had to eat one right out of the oven when they're nice and hot.  Perfect with a cup of tea and all my work on a rainy SF Thursday.

Strawberry Shortcake

First of all, Happy Strawberry Shortcake day!!  Yes this is a holiday and definitely one worthy of celebration.  Not only are strawberries one of my favorite fruits but Strawberry Shortcake happens to be a nickname of mine.  The nickname comes from the food, not this adorable lil lady (although maybe there's some resemblance between us?):

So in honor of this day I give you one of my favorite strawberry shortcake recipes.  I actually made it last week before I even knew about this holiday.   love this dessert (even though it's not chocolate, it's probably in my top 10 favs) but I've never actually made it.  This meant I had to find a yummy recipe.  Well Google Reader makes it super simple to search through alllll the blogs I read (and let me tell you, there are a lot!) and helped me to find this one.  I love it because it's an Alice Waters recipe and I have a serious girl crush on her.  Google her, she's THE California cuisine/eat fresh foods/get schools to have gardens pioneer!  She is also the founder of the restaurant Chez Paniesse restaurant which we ate at a few months ago and I took all the pictures but forgot to do the blog post on.  Anyways, I think she's cool.  You had me at Alice.

Anyways, the shortcakes tasted delicious.  I even made then special by cutting them out with a fun cookie cutter - in the shape of the US (why yes, I am a US history nerd!) - instead of circles like suggested.  And at this point I wish I had a picture to show you but we gobbled them up too quickly/I completely forgot.  Oooppsies.

Pizza Pizza!

Pizza is one of my favorite things to eat.  My mom always made us home made pizza growing up and it was the best.  We never had delivery pizza growing up because my mom's was just so good.

But pizza can be a lil tricky to make because you need to use...yeast.  Now for bakers out there yeast can be intimidating.  Yeast can be temperamental, the water has to be the perfect temperature and if you mess up then the whole recipe could be ruined.  Pressure, I tell ya.

But fortunately my mom told me I had nothing to be worried about and I trust her.  So I went off the make my pizza dough.

So here's what you do:

Put 1 teaspoon of sugar in 1 cup of warm water (just make sure the water is warm to the touch, like bath water.  Other people might say to use a thermometer but I was good without it) then you add 1 packet of yeast (ok, so I got over zealous - shocker - and bought a whole jar of yeast instead of just a packet because I WILL make pizza and yeast breads more often!) and stir.  Let it sit for about 5 minutes.  The yeast will bubble and I wish I took a picture of this but I was kinda shocked by it so I tots forgot about the camera...sorry.

Next you add 1 teaspoon of olive oil (I used my tasty rosemary flavored olive oil from Croatia) to 2 1/2 cups of flour.

Then you mix it all together and knead it until it forms a dough, like below:

Now cover this with a damp towel and let it rise in a warm oven for 30-45 minutes.  (Sorry that wasn't very exciting so no picture.)

Then you punch the dough down - the fun part - and you then roll/pat the dough into pizza shapes, like below:

Now, I forgot to do this next part even though my sister Jeannie told me I should (yes, Jeannie was right.  There I said it!)  You need to pour the tomato sauce on the pizza shapes before you let them rise a second time.  Otherwise they puff up too much and it's kinda tricky to put the sauce on then.  Anyways, with the sauce on let them rise another time for an hour.

Then you can put on any toppings you want and bake them at 425 degrees for 10-20 minutes.

And above are the tasty pizzas displayed by the lovely models.  Sorry about the poor picture quality but I'm still learning to use Jeannie's camera.

Yummmmmm!

Boozy Baking

So this post is a little late for Cinco de Mayo - lo siento.  But it can really be used any time of year.  For example, most weeks we celebrate Taco Tuesday.  It's a very festive day of the week filled with guac, salsa, Coronas, margaritas and of course tacos.

But this Tuesday since it was just after Cinco de Mayo I decided to make these yummy Margarita Cupcakes.  I figured that margaritas are good and cupcakes are good so combine 'em and it must be great!  I was right.  There's tequila and lime in the batter and frosting and then more poured on top of the baked cakes.  Seriously might get you a lil bit of a buzz...

A while ago I did some more boozy baking and made Champagne Cupcakes.  I know, right?!  De-li-cious!  And they were.  Wow totally sounds like I'm tooting my own baking horn here but I actually have all of these other blogging bakers to thank.

First of all, pour yourself a glass of champagne because you have to open up the bottle to bake with but you don't need the whole bottle so lucky you there's a lil extra for sipping as you go.

You bake the cupcakes and then hollow out party of the center to add some champagne filling.  Yeah there's lots of the bubbly stuff in here.  Then you fill 'em and put the tops back on.

Put some frosting on and yes, you guessed it there's more champagne in the frosting!

Yummmy!

Awesome Times in Austin!

Last weekend Jeannie and I went to Austin for our friend's Rachel and Dave's wedding.  It was a blast! Not only is Austin a cool town but we had so much fun celebrating the wedding.

Austin is known as the live music capital of the world and while we didn't get too much of a chance to partake in that you could see it everywhere.

Although we did catch a sweet 80's cover band at a bar.  Love it.

 Austin is also known for it's yummy BBQ, Tex Mex and Southern cooking.  We definitely hit that up! Also plenty of tasty drinks around so it was good that we had our special wedding koozies around to keep 'em cold.  Best.wedding.favor.ever.

 There is also the beautiful Colorado River is Austin - not to be confused with the one that runs through Colorado and California, thanks Allison!

 Austin is also the government state capitol.  It is made completely of granite and looks similar to the California state capitol.

 And while Austin is very different from the rest of Texas you can still see TEXAS written everrrrywhere in the state capitol building.  And it does appear that everything is bigger in Texas.

 Here we are with the gorgeous bride!  Seriously so pretty and such a fantastic wedding!  Can't stop talking about is a week later!

 Such a wonderful sissy to travel with.

And since the groom is in the military they did a sword arch for the bride and groom to pass under.  Jeannie and I made sure that the boys were in tip top shape and that they didn't start sword fighting with each other - a bigger task than one would think when an open bar is involved.

And what would one of my blog posts be without a food pic?  This was a de-licious eggs bene I had for brunch one morning.  It was served on a croissant with brie cheese.  Um, brie, croissant, hollandaise sauce...did I just die and go to heaven?  That or a heart attack.  An regrettably this is the only food photo I have.  I blame my lack on pictures due to the fact that there were many open bars at meals.  Lo siento!

All in all we had a blast in Austin and can't wait to go back!

Thank goodness it's baseball season!

This was my first Giant's game of the season and it feels good to be back at AT&T Park (arguably one of the best ball parks out there) with a beer in hand cheering on the Giant's! Yes the coldest baseball games happen here (sadly SF doesn't get summer until Sept) but with every seat having a view of the bay, I can deal with the chill factor. And yes I'm repping a Giant's mascot, Lou Seal, hat. Let's paint the town orange and black!!! ;)