a magritte christmas

magritte
Originally uploaded by itslynzee.

the holidays is usually a flurry of activity in and around the actual christmas day. our holiday festivities are currently ongoing so blogging will be sort of limited until we’ve ushered in the new year.

my yearly baking frenzy was designated for christmas eve eve and i commandeered a friend to help me ease through the day. on tap were 101cookbook’s gingerbread men, bake or break’s irish cream brownies, kraft food’s cranberry biscotti, and by suggestion of my helper, domestic goddess’s peppermint bark. the day before i also attempted to make my super ripe persimmon into jelly candy but due to not having the right kind of pectin (and possibly user error) i ended up with persimmon jelly instead of jelly candy. but i digress. the recipes were all fairly easy but the gingerbread ended up being the most time consuming of them all. not used to making roll out cookies i was pooped about halfway through the batch. i had intended to frost them all but by the time i finished baking them i was completely over the idea of frosting. at my helpers insistence however, i made up a small batch of frosting and SHE proceeded to frost a couple of the cookies (literally a couple, TWO!) before she announced that she two was over the idea of frosting.

the lesson learned last year was to use smaller dishes when presenting holiday treats so all of my dishes were of manageable sizes. the lesson for this year is that when making roll out cookies, leave at least two days for completion of this project. one day to bake and one day to frost! hope you all have a very happy holiday season.

almond cupcake

almond cupcake
Originally uploaded by itslynzee.

awhile back i opened a can of marzipan to decorate some minicakes that i had made. since that episode, the rest of the lump has been languishing in the back of my fridge until i decided what to do with it. i had heard somewhere that marzipan has a long shelf life so i decided that (hopefully) it would still be edible. ;-)

i settled on altering a david lebovitz recipe for almond cake into cupcakes. the first batch came out sad and laden with butter... so much butter in fact that large pools of butter formed on the pan that i used to bake the cupcakes on! yikes! pools of butter wouldn’t usually be a bad thing. actually in most occasions it actually sounds pretty tasty. except on this particular occasion when it has oozed out of the cupcake batter AND the paper cup in which you are trying to cook cupcakes in! i attempted a second batch and decreased the butter to 7 ounces instead of 10. pools of butter again! although luckily this time they were not as large. so i ate them. yum. moist and almond-y. the recipe below decreases the amount of butter to 5 ounces. i think that would be just about right.

unfortunately the frosting was a whole different calamity. i don’t feel much like writing about it but it was sort of lumpy and clayish in consistency and had to be applied with my fingers rather than in the regular manner. ugh. so i’m not posting the recipe because it was basically a waste of time and ingredients. but i didn’t have any more time so i just used it. sometimes things are just much more difficult than you imagine in your head!

Almond cupcakes
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup marzipan
5 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature
6 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and position the rack to the center of the oven.
2. Cut the sugar and marzipan together in the food processor until the pieces are the size of sand grains. (the sugar crystals helps break the paste into pieces-so don't add the butter yet!)
3. Now add the butter and sugar/marzipan mixture and beat with an mixer for a few minutes until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, or a measuring cup with a spout, stir together the eggs with a fork then dribble it into the batter as you beat. Add the vanilla.

holiday projects

Around this time of the year, crafty folks end up making a bunch of stuff to give away as gifts. This can lead to a sort of blogging dilemma, wherein they are making more stuff than usual, but have less things to write about because the created objects are supposed to be some sort of a secret.


Here is where having friends and family who lack internet access becomes a huge asset. Over the summer, I stayed with my grandma while taking classes at a summer institute. She was somewhat intrigued by my decrepit laptop, since she has never used a computer before.

This is her unblocked Christmas gift with ends not yet woven in. She, like other members of our family, never turns on the heater in her very cold house. This shawl seems pretty warm.

Yarn: Frog Tree Hill fingering weight alpaca, Pattern: diagonal garter stitch square

holiday dinner party

ravioli cutter
Originally uploaded by itslynzee.

i hosted a small family dinner earlier this week. i wish i could have the whole family over at once, but unfortunately there are limitations on how many people you can fit comfortably into a 600 square foot condo. =p the consensus is that six is the maximum occupancy of my space. perhaps i should make up one of those maximum occpancy signs that you see in restaurants? would that be kitschy? or tacky? hahaha...

one of my aunts was in from out of town so it seemed to be a perfect opportunity to have her and some other family over for dinner to inaugurate my new dining room table. (thanks dad for helping me carry it up to my place!) i had settled on a menu awhile back but i ended up tweaking it a little bit due to some last minute inspiration (and a lack of sleep).

the final menu:

smoked salmon appetizers - smoked salmon courtesy of my friend j and her bf. =) everyone commented on how good the smoked salmon was! smoked salmon is tasty!

baked chicken thighs stuffed with mashed potatoes and sausage - the stuffing was a last minute inspiration. i was actually going to make mashed potatoes but then i decided that it would be better to jam the mashed potatoes INSIDE the chicken rather than serve it on the side.

butternut squash ravioli with brown butter and sage - just in case the chicken thighs weren't enough.

oven roasted veggies and potatoes - the obligatory vegetable mix. we have to be well rounded don't we?

creme brulee - it was my first time using the torch. it pretty easy but my finger was kind of sore from pressing it down the button for so long. the need to come up with a more ergonomic torch. i also forgot to torch it an hour before we ate it so i wasn't able to chill it before we ate it. kind of soupy.

i didn't take pictures of everything because i was sort of in a frenzy towards the middle of everything. there are some additional pictures on my flickr page if you are curious.


smoked salmon appetizers
Originally uploaded by itslynzee.

plants!!

unexpected sighting

lf sees birds on her commute to work. I usually see rabbits and some crows on my way home. Over by the garden, there are these cute little chartreuse-colored birds that hang out on the butterfly bush and are practically camouflaged. Holding a bag full of kitchen scraps, I was walking through the lawn and headed towards this muddy incline that I walk up to get to my garden plot, when I noticed this car that was slowed down and seemed to be looking in my direction. I was vaguely annoyed until I noticed, a couple of yards ahead, this gigantic bird.

Ok, so crows are large birds. Some of them could be about the size of a chicken, but this was a large bird, that later internet research revealed to be a great blue heron. It was about three feet tall, if not more, and was just hanging out in grass. It was like walking in the university library stacks that you thought were deserted and unexpectedly running into an elementary school kid. Running into a bird is not normally a big deal, but when that bird has taken on unusual proportions where it's ten times the size of birds that you regularly see, then it becomes a big deal, like it would be if you usually shop for one person and then accidentally find yourself in a Costco warehouse among restaurant-sized vats of mayonnaise.

All excited, I ran back to my apartment to get my camera. When I got back to the grassy area, the heron was still there. I started to inch closer to it, but the grass was covered with fallen leaves and the plastic bag of kitchen scraps started making rustling noises. The heron looked at me warily. I tried being quieter, but still wanted to get closer. Then a car drove by and the heron flew away. All I got was this blurry picture.



Once the bird-sighting adrenaline wore off, I started to wonder who would win if we were to get into a fight. On the one hand, I'm taller by maybe a foot or more and it has a small neck. On the other hand, it has a really long beak and large wings. Good thing it's afraid of me.

no knead bread

first rise
Originally uploaded by itslynzee.

the food blogging world has been buzzing with talk about the no knead bread recipe by jim lahey. I’m sure you’ve read about the recipe. and even if you haven’t I don’t really need to tell you what it’s all about because you can read it yourself! I love the idea because it’s a method of cooking that I fully embrace… passive cooking (i.e. crockpot cooking… long cooking times very with very little action involved).

second rise
Originally uploaded by itslynzee.


when I first read the recipe I immediately added it to my todo list. a month or so later I finally was able to try it out! the follow up article by mark bittman suggests the addition of a little more salt and that wheat flour can be substituted in at a maximum of 50 percent. it’s very easy. and very passive. hopefully making my own bread will become habit.


end product
Originally uploaded by itslynzee.

goldfish

goldfish
Originally uploaded by itslynzee.

i must admit that i spied this stuffed creature on flickr before he even showed up in my mailbox! diana kelley created a whole menagerie of stuffed ornaments and oddly enough the goldfish was my favorite! lucky me! i actually ended up with him. =)

nest

nest
Originally uploaded by itslynzee.

there's a bit of excitement when i open my mailbox lately. =)

ornaments from the swap have started to make their way to me! i've received a few so far and will post them up as time allows.

this little guy by suzanna scala is a nest occupied by a hand sewn birdie and glitter eggs. beautiful!

thesis cooking

I'm currently giving my thesis from last year a major overhaul, complete with a new argument. While a lot of the paper is just getting shuffled around and this is far from revising a dissertation, I still wouldn't mind if someone decided to make me chirashi for dinner.

Just saying.

my first pizza (dough)

my first pizza (dough)
Originally uploaded by itslynzee.

what do you do when the holiday projects, decorating, and wrapping are all piling up in the corner crying out to be completed? well, make pizza of course!

i’ve been wanting to make my own pizza dough for ages but i just haven’t gotten up enough gumption to actually make it. lots and lots of premade trader joe’s pizza dough has made it’s way onto my pizza stone but when it comes to homemade i’ve always been a pizza dough flake. the main problem? time. you see when i come home from work i want to eat dinner and i want to eat it two hours ago. my stomach is on a very strict timetable and nothing will stand in it’s way. if dinner is not ready instantly then often i end up eating a box of crackers in lieu of dinner. just because it’s THERE. sad but true.

the other day i actually got it in my head that i would make the pizza dough AHEAD of time! so armed with chubby hubby’s recipe for napoletana pizza dough from his super sunday truffle pizzas post, i set to work. after the first round of mixing and rising i was mighty suspicious. this misshapen lump is going to turn out to be pizza dough? it hardly rose! it’s just sitting in the bowl there looking gray and lifeless! the next morning when i peeked into the fridge however, it was looking a little puffier and full of yeasty goodness.

i invited a friend for dinner and had included the warning that this was my first attempt at homemade pizza dough. luckily this friend of mine never cooks and therefore appreciates anything made in a home kitchen. i separated the dough into balls and contemplated toppings... i had halved the recipe so there were three dough balls to work with.

Ball One: faux margarita pizza (since i had no mozzarella) which included red sauce, fresh basil, parmesan, and pine nuts.

Ball Two: acorn squash puree, feta, caramelized onions, and slivered almonds

Ball Three: red sauce, pepperoni, and corn. both the pepperoni and corn were recovered from the depths of my freezer. hey i was running out of toppings to work with ok?

the oven heated to 550F (setting off the fire alarm on two occasions due to the amount of crusty things on the bottom of my oven) and i baked two of the pizzas on the stone. since there wasn’t any room left on the stone i put the remaining pizza on a silpat and threw it in at the same time as the others. seven minutes later the taste testing began. the crust was thin but at the same time a bit chewy. yum. definitely a recipe for the file.

meathead

I participated in the meathead-a-long. I'm not sure exactly what drew me towards it. Maybe it was a secret desire to own a pointy hat. Maybe it was because the word "meat" was in the name of the pattern. This managed to confuse people who had read my previous post about how the yarn I dyed looked like ground beef. It's not the same yarn.

For possibly only the second time in my personal knitting history, I used the yarn specified in the pattern, in a mulberry, not a ground beef color. With the size #15 needles, I felt like I was knitting with broom handles or something. It was sort of jarring after using needles that look like toothpicks. The hat was a pretty quick knit, so soon all I had to deal with was figuring out what to use to embellish it. I tried a bunch of things, including a crochet shamrock and some crochet musical notes. The musical notes came out kind of cute, but they didn't show up against the background of the hat. The clover doesn't really either, but at least it's more three-dimensional so it doesn't get completely lost. It's still missing something, I think, and will need more tinkering. Suggestions are welcome.

craft magazine

today i added a button for craft magazine on the sidebar because:

1) it's a cute button,
2) it's true (sometimes. well mostly true for sandia), and
3) it's a cool magazine!

the end.

pomegranate

pomegranate
Originally uploaded by itslynzee.

if i didn't have the grocery outlet nearby i might seriously be eating myself into debt! they have a great selection of organic and all natural products for bargain basement prices (just make sure to check the expiration dates! hahahaha).

a bottle of pomegranate juice for $1.30.
ingredients listed on the back of the bottle... pomegranate juice!

ornament swap 2006

ornament pyramid
Originally uploaded by itslynzee.

last friday was the deadline for the ornament swap 2006! so, true to lf form... i was up late on thursday night and early on friday morning to finish up my ornaments. i had decided on an origami ornament in holiday colors. i was going to do them all in green with red foil but i ended up running out as each ornament is made out of 12 sheets of paper! i finished folding and assembling everything in the evening and in the morning i glued the stubborn pieces into place and made up some christmas tags to go along with them. i was running out of time to get to work so i had to package them up during my lunch hour and was able to ship them out right after work!

it was definitely a good motivator to kick off the holiday season. i can't wait to see what everyone else created! =)

(i took a couple of other pictures but didn't post them on the blog. take a look at my flickr page if you'd like to see more.)