As one can probably tell from the tag cloud one of my favorite hobbies is to bake. I really like being able to create something that looks and tastes amazing, especially when things in my life are stressful. It is relaxing somehow. This past year has been marked by moving away from my standard recipes and experimenting with more complex recipes. I think that I must talk about it a lot because for Christmas my wonderful loved ones gave me things like aprons, cook books, a baking book, and (wait for it) my very own Kitchen Aid mixer! The mixer was a gift from my husband David. It is bright red to match our tea kettle (red is also one of my all-time favorite colors; if it wasn’t for David this whole house would be full of red) and has a bowl-lift mechanism instead of the standard way of the top hinging upward. It looks so big on my kitchen countertop! I feel quite spoiled even having an automatic mixer but it is kind of wonderful at the same time. Inspired by it’s size and color the mixer has been christened Clifford. Of course, I couldn’t wait to use it so here was breakfast the day after Christmas:

Whole wheat blueberry muffins! Here is a link to the recipe: http://www.eatmedelicious.com/2008/02/whole-wheat-blueberry-muffins.html

Okay, so we didn’t blog every day, but we got off to a good start to begin with. There is still plenty of snow on the ground and this evening we made snow ice cream in celebration of David’s childhood memories. It was fun and easy and I am going to share it with you :)

In a blender place

1/2 orange (peel removed and diced), 2-3 tablespoons of sugar, 3/8 cup milk, a splash of vanilla and a dash of salt. Puree.

Go outside and get clean, unblemished, untouched snow (several cups worth). Add snow in large spoonfuls to mixture and blend in between scoops until recipe resembles ice cream. Makes 4-6 serving

Eat before it melts. Enjoy!

     The original plans for this Saturday before Christmas was a trip to Baltimore to visit David’s cousins and some old fiends. But as any of you who have been following the news know there has been quite a bit of snowfall along the East Coast and David and I opted to play it safe and stay here at the homestead. We did wonderful things like make Chex mix and walk around while it was snowing. I really like how the snow crunches under your feet when it is freshly fallen. The snow is just gorgeous and it is still falling quite rapidly. David, John, and I are sitting by the Christmas tree watching the snow fall and listening to Linda practice for Christmas Eve service. It feels so picturesque. White Christmas here we come!

The theme of the day today was grocery shopping.  We (mostly Megan and my Mom) spent a while this morning figuring out what meals we would eat for the next several days, what recipes were entailed, and what ingredients were required.  In addition, there were several odds and ends that needed to be picked up as well, culminating in a massive grocery list.  All four of us embarked to the local McCaffrey’s, split up the list and began gathering up all the various items!

As it turns out, grocery shopping is not that exciting, so instead of describing the rest of our shopping trip in painstaking detail, I’ll share an amusing anecdote with you.  While Megan and I were in the produce aisle, I noticed an elderly lady reaching for an item on the top shelf and having some difficulty retrieving it.  I walked over to her and offered my assistance, but arrived just as she finally coaxed the item off of the shelf.  In response, she gave a stern look and said, “You should have gotten here faster.”  I told her that I was sorry and promised that next time, I would be quicker, to which she replied, “Apology accepted,” and went on her way with an ever so small twinkle in her eye.

In other news, the weather service(s) are predicting about a foot of snow tomorrow. (!!)  NJ snow predictions have a tendency to be over-inflated, but the storm system is already dumping on NC and VA pretty good, so we’ll see what happens tomorrow…

     The third day of our New Jersey extravaganza finds us mostly at the homestead. I went running (admittedly the first time since running the half marathon) in the frigid morning with John and then promptly fell back asleep and roused around noon (9 am in Seattle). David and I spent the afternoon wrapping gifts and spending time with Linda. This evening we went over Princeton to visit John and Lucy (longtime friends of David). We had a grand time chatting about home ownership, families, work, and life in general and realizing how old we are that this is the stage of life in which we find ourselves. It was a nice, relaxing day and now we must sleep in preparation for tomorrow which will be a flurry of planning and shopping.

     This post feels short so I will post a quick little story. David and I are staying in his old bedroom. There is a little wooden clock on the wall that makes a ticking noise, although not like a gentle tick-tock. The sound reminds me almost exactly of the sound that my toaster oven makes when it is running and I have found myself lying awake in the bed waiting for the *bing* letting me know that my toast is ready for consumption. 

      After a nice long rest last night David and I were able to spend a little time today poking around his old neighborhood as well as getting a little tour of Sarnoff Corporation with John (David’s dad). John also took us on a grand tour of Princeton! We started at the graduate hall with a big impressive building with all kinds or ornate details like stained glass and big arches. Keeping with the school theme we passed by the Institute for Advanced Study (of note, this is the where Einstein spent the latter part of his career), the American Boychoir School (Mark’s brother attended here during Jr. High School), and the buildings in which the SAT test is created every year. We also passed by the governor's mansion and the houses of John Nash (of Beautiful Mind fame) and Einstein. The day of touring culminated with a trip to Palmer’s Square, a little shopping district full of whimsical little shops. I really enjoyed how all of the shops were not cookie-cutters from all over the country, but rather full of local flavor and unique. We had a small bite of ice cream at the Bent Spoon which was quite delightful (dark chocolate sorbet? yes please). The evening finished off with Aljon’s Pizza. I hear about Aljon’s quite frequently from David as the epitome of what pizza ought to be. While delicious, I can’t say I fully agree with him. It was a full day and we are now relaxing at the homestead.

Thanks for reading! Missing you all in Seattle!

      Today is the first day of our Christmas vacation in New Jersey and I thought that it would be fun to post little blog posts for each day. We arrived at the Philadelphia airport at 11:00 AM EST after catching a redeye from Seattle last night.  Instead of heading back to the New Jersey homestead we went out to the Philadelphia farmer’s market, a model train display,and  a display of the history of building toys. We had a classic Philadelphia lunch and capped it off with designer cupcakes before heading into Macy’s to see the world’s largest pipe organ and an “amazing” light display and then made the road trip back to South Mill Road. Linda made us some delicious pumpkin stew and we ended the day with Christmas piano music and a sing-a-long.

       The story of the day is that of velvet cupcakes. We ate a velvet cupcake today and while enjoying the cake Linda explained that velvet cake used to be very difficult to find. Her aunt Roberta once at a particularly delicious velvet cake at a bakery and asked for the recipe. Roberta was happy to find that they were quite accommodating and provided her the recipe. Imagine her surprise when she got home and found that she had been charged $100 (in the year 1950) for the recipe. Angry, Roberta distributed the recipe to many many people. Some time after this velvet cake became widely available. Was this Roberta’s doing? We will probably never know.

Goodnight.

Last week I had some friends over to decorate Christmas cookies. In preparation for this event I decided to find the best sugar cookie recipe that I could. I pulled two classic books- Martha Stewart and Joy of Cooking and then went online to trusty ol’ Allrecipes to find the top-rated recipe. I baked a small batch of each of these recipes and then took them over to my husband’s work. David, several of his co-workers, and the lady at the front desk all ate the cookies and voted which cookie was most to their liking. The end result was a tie between Martha Stewart and Allrecipes. The consensus was that if they were only to eat one cookie that Martha Stewart was the way to go, but if they were going to eat more than one that the Allrecipe recipe would better. I think this was because the Martha Stewart recipe was a bit sweeter than the rest. For those of you also baking this holiday season here is the link to the Allrecipe sugar cookies (they were the one that got my vote. Mostly for the consistency and the not-too-sweet taste)

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/The-Best-Rolled-Sugar-Cookies/Detail.aspx?prop31=2

And for you Martha Stewart/sweet cookie lovers here is her sugar cookie recipe:

4 sticks (1 pound) unsalted butter, room temperature    3 cups sugar    2 large eggs      1 tsp pure vanilla extract     1 1/2 tstp salt    5 cups all-purpose flour

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes). Add eggs, vanilla, and salt; mix until well combined. Add flour in two batches, mixing until just incorporated. Turn out dough onto a clean work surface, divide in half and pat into flattened rectangles. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 1 week.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut dough into shapes with cookie cutters and place on prepared sheets. Bake until cookies are golden around the edges and firm to the touch, about 15 minutes. (of note, I found this only took about 12 minutes).

Enjoy!

        One of the goals that I set out to complete at the beginning of this year was running a half marathon. After my sister and I ran our first 5k in September of 2008 we had been toying with the idea. My work schedule was not ideal for this goal as most every race we heard of conflicted with a day that I was scheduled, but after several stalls and starts in training I did eventually complete the training and was able to run in the Seattle Half Marathon on November 29. My time was 2:18:40 a full 3:40 longer than my goal time of 2:15:00. I have had a cold for a week and am shrugging off the difference to the nasal congestion and fatigue that the cold has given me.

       This year in general has not been a year of wellness and I have burned through almost all of my sick time at work. Every time this past week that I have had to make that phone call to let my job know I won’t be in (working while sick at all is not allowed in the ICU) I am immediately assaulted with guilt over not doing my job and spending my days lying on the couch. I like to think of myself as a strong, productive person and sickness just takes that away from me. Our lives are not measured in half marathon times or how many to-dos that we get done each day, but it is so easy to fall into thinking that way. Feeling so awful has had me relying on God and my husband so much more than usual and left me realizing how prideful and self-reliant I can be. 

   Last Tuesday David and I had our 2nd anniversary! As a way to celebrate this joyous event we went on a road trip down Highway 101 through Washington, Oregon, and California before splitting off for a while onto Highway 1 down the coast of California and eventually landing in San Francisco. We lived it up for one day in San Francisco before heading back home via I-5 back to our normal lives and jobs and responsibilities.

     The drive down 101 was absolutely breathtaking. Even in the middle of the fall with the cold, cloudy, stormy weather the views were incredible. Here is just a peak of what we were able to see from our car:

     Along the way we stopped in Tillamook, Oregon to sample some really good cheese and celebrate Tillamook Creamery’s 100th anniversary with- what else? - a delicious ice cream cone.

   We took a detour along the way in California to drive through the Avenue of the Giants. And, no, this is not where basketball players live. It was a winding drive through California’s famed Redwood forest. The trees were huge! Along the way were several establishments that wanted us to pay money to drive through a tree, but we decided just to look at the trees instead.

     The day in San Francisco was spent doing things like riding cable cars, visiting Coit Tower, and taking a ferry to Alcatraz. The day was much too short, but enjoyable. One of my favorite parts were the murals at Coit Tower. They were painted in the 1930s, but very well preserved and depicting everyday events that felt both familiar and yet of a past era both at the same time. The best of the Alcatraz adventure was the audio tour which was a recording of some of the prison guards and prisoners that were there during it’s short time of operation.  Here is a picture of David with a small bit of the Coit Tower murals

       It was a fine trip and David is a fine husband. We had a grand time! Many thanks to our family and friends for all of the love and support you have given us over the last two years!