Post-Running Rorschach Test

After Dwight's run last weekend, he came back rather sweaty. He always ends up that way, but the pattern this time was decidedly unique.

Me: You got a little sweaty.

D: Yeah, I probably overdressed. It's like a Rorschach test. Quick - what do you see?

Me: Uuuuuhhh. SEAHORSES.

D: (walking to a mirror so he can see his shirt properly) *Pause* Yeah, I can see that.

So, quick! What do YOU see?

(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday - Family

From Father's Day

My husband

The dads: my brother-in-law and my dad

Nana (my mom) and her oldest granddaughter

Sisters, dancing and singing

The youngest, feeding the cows

My sister, on grill duty

(Unfortunately didn't get a good shot of my brother, but he was there!)

p.s. I finally got around to re-coloring my hair. Back to bright red and purple. The purple is underneath, so you can barely see it peeking up from my up-do.

52 Week Photo Project — Week 3

This week's theme is "Your Favorite Thing." LensProToGo elaborated on the theme on their blog:

We want everyone to get to the core of this and find something that they like more than everything else and hold close to their heart. What is the one thing you would most likely save if your house was on fire (considering your family, including all animals, were safe). If you could only keep 1 thing (again considering you could keep your family and pets) what would you want to save?

I like that they added the "in case of fire" explanation. It really made me think about the assignment. I, of course thought of things like all my photos, my computer or CD/DVD back ups, but that seemed too obvious. I wanted to dig deeper.

I mentally scanned my house, thinking of objects in each room, assessing their value. Not monetary but emotional. It was eye opening how many things I thought of as replaceable or not "fire scenario" significant.

As soon as I thought of this, though, I knew it was the one. I picked an oil painting that hangs in my home office. It's on the wall right now, up and to my right, looking beautiful against the "library green" wall. Neither the subject matter nor artist are what makes this painting so special for me, though. It's all of the meaning and emotion behind it.

My mom gave me this painting which was given to her by Marian, my godmother. I never met Marian. She passed away shortly after I was baptized. Marian was my mother's mentor, confidant and I suspect, a kind of second mother. They were very close. I know my mother cherishes this painting because Marian gave it to her, so it means that much more that my mom, in turn, gave it to me. I would be positively devastated if anything happened to it (which is why I should probably take it to a reputable restorer to make sure it is and stays in good shape. The label on the back is brittle and falling off and I noticed some crackling in the paint.

It most certainly qualifies for the "in case of fire" scenario posed by LensProToGo.

What about you? What is YOUR favorite thing, the one thing you'd want to save? Trust me, it's a very thought-provoking and emotional question.

Wordy Wednesday — Christmas Baking

So I did some baking this past weekend. Lots of it. On Saturday, I went to my mom's to bake with her, my sister and my nieces.



We had fun and managed to bake a ton of cookies in a fairly short amount of time.

This was about half of what we made that day.

My mom had made some dough ahead of time and baked the sugar cookies, so between that and the cookies we mixed on the spot, we were the model of efficiency. Fun and productive. Win-win!

Have cookie press. Will travel.

Quick! Look! They're getting along. Aww...

Hooray for making cookies - and memories.

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Sunday was all me. I'd also made all my dough ahead. I knew I had too much to do to try and accomplish it all in one or two days, so the weekend prior then a couple of times through the week, I mixed up batches of cookie dough. All that was left was the baking (and cooling and picture taking and packaging...) and it worked out so nicely that I plan to do future epic baking sessions like that as well. No messing with mixing bowls, measuring cups, ingredients everywhere - then having to clean them to repeat the process. Just lining up pans and baking all day. Awesome.

So here's most of what I made. Links for recipes below photos.



My favorite of the day — Pain d'Amande from Flo Braker (via David Lebovitz). Crispy, nutty, sweet with subtle but noticeable cinnamon. So easy and one of my new favorite cookies. You can keep this dough in the freezer to slice and bake whenever the urge strikes. I love how these looked when the light hit them as I sliced the dough.



Next up...



Molasses Ginger cookies from Farmgirl Fare —Big, chewy, super spicy and a close second to the almond cookies. This was the recipe one of my coworkers had to have. They're good. Really good.

Also from Farmgirl Fare...



Chocolate chip shortbread cookies — she uses toffee bits, but I didn't have any, so I threw in some cinnamon chips along with the mini chocolate chips. Buttery, melt-in-your-mouth, not too sweet bites of bliss.

On to a pinterest find...



Lemon crinkle cookies — I wanted to "holiday" this up a bit, so I added cherry flavored dried cranberries. The texture of these is out of this world — slightly crunchy on the outside, super soft and chewy on the inside. I really liked the cranberries in these, but the lemon was too subtle for my taste. I even aded a bit of lemon extract, but I'd double the lemon next time. Still, these were excellent.

And the final one I'm sharing is the savory one of the bunch (apologies for terrible pic)...



Parmesan-Herb Biscotti — I used this recipe after doing a search for "savory biscotti". I love homemade cheesy crackers, but they don't stay crisp or keep very long, but I knew biscotti held up so I figured there had to be a savory version. The original recipe doesn't call for herbs, but I added some Italian spices along with a pinch of red pepper flakes. A nice little kick to go with the cheese and crunch. I halved the recipe. I did make this from start to finish on Sunday, the only dough mixing of the day.

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I also baked snickerdoodles, but can't recall where I found the recipe, so I didn't bother taking pics. It's just your basic snickerdoodle. I also made Browned Butter Rice Krispie Treats that I found at Smitten Kitchen. NOT just your basic treat. So good and so easy. Browned butter makes everything better.

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I packaged everything up and got them ready for gift-giving. I hope you are all having fun with YOUR holiday baking!

Corn Maze Adventures

About 15 minutes from my house is a huge farm that creates a corn maze every year and is open from about the end of September until Halloween. I don't know how long they've been doing it, but long enough that I've told myself repeatedly that I'd like to go. I was hoping to go last year when a friend came to visit for a long weekend, but the weather didn't cooperate.

But on the 15th, I finally made the trip. The weather was windy but lovely — and I got to check the very first item off my 6 'til 40 list. Win-win!

I told my sister I wanted to go hoping she and her kids would come, too = extra fun and extra photo opportunities. She was game and on Saturday afternoon, she picked me up and we headed to Leininger Farms to walk the corn maze. Her oldest was with us and her middle girl was coming with our parents. So it was a whole family affair. 

My sister and me

Except. My mom was creeped out by the idea of spiders in the corn, so she was NOT game for going through the maze. She was cracking me up. I think it was one of those childhood trauma things rearing it's head and she just wasn't having anything to do with walking though 7 foot high corn. 

Well, she needn't have worried because these guys have this thing DOWN. It's pretty obvious that they plan out the maze even before they plant the corn, so the paths are made of packed dirt and really wide. It was really well maintained and really easy to get through. As a bonus, the corn blocked the wind AND the sun was shining like crazy. Beautiful!

Me and K

Lisa's middle girl, M, turned out to be quite the map reader. She became the official guide and earned the nickname "the human GPS." My sister and I joked that she certainly didn't get that from our side of the family, or at least from HER. Or me. I can read a map OK, but my sense of direction is pretty abysmal. I had no idea where we were it that maze, but my argument is that I was too busy taking pics and letting them lead the way.

M- the human GPS

One of the fun things about the maze is that they set up stations at various points along the maze. Each station is marked on the map they hand out and has a question pertaining to the theme of the maze. This year the maze was in the shape of Indiana and all of the questions had to do with the state. 

You are here.

Many were really easy, some we THOUGHT were easy and weren't. We missed 3 or 4 out of about 14 or 15. M quickly discovered a way to "cheat" on the answers. The questions were multiple choice and there was a hole punch at each station, so you punched either A B C or D. M saw the punched circles scattered on the ground and found out what everyone else was answering. It was pretty funny.

Scattered answers

We made it to the middle...

The center!

And kept on going.

M & K

We even found a very elusive someone while we were in there. 

Hey! I found him!

So if you're wondering where Waldo is, last time I checked, he was walking around a corn maze.

We kept going until we hit all of the stations (or so we thought - we missed one) then walked over to the HUGE selection of pumpkins and gourds. And went to town.

And my sister found a teeny tiny pumpkin/gourd. Awwww.

It was a blast! I'm so glad I went and got to spend time with my sister and two of my nieces and visit with the 'rents. 

In case you want to see even more of the adventure, here's the whole flickr album:

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This is the first of many adventures I plan on having over the next 5 months or so  (yep, already down a month - yipes).  I'm turning 40 on April 2, 2012 and I've created a list of fun things I want to do between now an then. Stay tuned for more 6' til 40 happenings!

Merry Christmas!

I thought I'd share with you my favorite quote of the season. It comes from my youngest niece.

C last Christmas

C just turned nine on November 30 and she still believes in Santa, which I think is awesome. The longer kids hold on to that kind of optimism, the better I feel about the state of the world. So a few weeks ago, she came home and was talking to her mom about what the kids were saying at school about Santa.

"Some kids are saying that Santa is just parents, but I don't think so. I mean, there is NO WAY parents could afford to buy all those presents!"

Love it, for a couple of reasons. First, that she just dismissed the rumors and stuck to her guns. And the other, that she realizes what a big deal all of those presents are. Pretty cool, eh?

This is most likely the last Christmas my sister will have a Santa believer in the house, so she's holding on to it, begging the other two girls to play along and let C have this last one.

If you'd like to experience the optimism a nine year old has, head over to this post on The Bloggess. It just might restore your belief in Santa – or at least the goodness of people. It's easy to see, hear and read about all of the bad things going on, so it's nice to see the other side, too. Regular people helping other regular people, strangers helping strangers through this crazy little thing we like to call The Internets.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you are happy, healthy and with the people you love and who love you.

Christmas 2009

Random Dwight-isms

Dwight likes to pronounce superhero names as if they're someone's last name. Like, Joe Spiderman wouldn't be "Joe SPI-der-MAN", but "Joe SPI-der-men". Suddenly, Peter Parker's alter ego sounds vaguely Jewish.

Dwight almost never buys just one of something, particularly canned and packaged goods. I've caught this habit myself. It's maddening – and can lead to a REALLY full pantry.

Dwight can't make just "a little bit" of anything when he cooks. It comes from having been a short order cook and working in a kitchen when he put himself through college. When he makes chicken and dumplings, we could invite the entire neighborhood over and still have leftovers. But we don't because it's so good *I* want all of the leftovers!

Dwight talks to our cats at least as much as I do. (We talk to them like they know what the hell we're saying–silly humans.) At least a few times a week, I'll hear him talking from another room, and I'll holler, "Were you talking to me or the cats?" It's almost always the cats.

One time when I went away for a weekend visiting a friend, I came home and Dwight had repainted our bathroom (which is a BEAST to paint) and redecorated it a bit. It was like being on that show, "While You Were Out." It was SO cool.  He does that kind of thing a lot. I came home one day, and he'd completely swapped the furniture between the living room & the family room. Couches, chairs, end tables – the works. He switched around pictures, changed up the mantle – all by himself. When he's on a mission, watch out. The man knows how to get things DONE.

He's pretty cool.

Birthday Cake — A Commissioned Work

My sister's oldest daughter (and my goddaughter) turns 12 today. Happy Birthday, K! About a month ago, she asked me to make her cake. How could I say no?

I spent a couple of weekends testing cake and frosting recipes (a tough job, but I wasn't taking this lightly) and going through cake decorating books from the library. After learning a bit more about cake making and the critical importance of correct cake pan preparation, I settled on the recipes and the kind of decorations I wanted.

Here's one of my first attempts. The decorating is not ideal, but making the tiny layer cakes was so much fun. Please note: Brown frosting is not a good idea. Not at all. K mentioned that, along with blue and green, brown was a favorite color. Needless to say, I nixed that plan after this attempt.



Since K's birthday was so close to Thanksgiving and the family was already going to be together, her mom decided that we'd celebrate on Thanksgiving. K's youngest sister, C, shares a birthday with her Papa (my dad) on November 30 (Happy Birthday, guys!) so we celebrated theirs as well.



This meant that Thanksgiving food prep would be extra intensive, since I'd already planned on making a couple kinds of bread and another dish. I started early and made it all work even though I was a tad late and the frosting was not happy being in a hot kitchen!


First, the recipes.

1-2-3-4 Cake
Adapted from Paula Deen
A delicious, easy, all-purpose yellow cake that stays nice and moist.

1 cup butter (2 sticks), room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
3 cups self-rising flour*, sifted
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup milk, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp butter flavoring
*An easy substitute for self-rising flour is to add 1-1/4 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt for EACH cup of flour. That's what I did.


Directions

• Preheat oven to 350°F. 
• Grease and flour 3 (9-inch) cake pans. Here's how! On parchment paper, trace around the bottom of each pan and trim just inside the line. Spray pan with cooking spray, then line with trimmed parchment. Spray again, making sure to coat entire pan. You can smooth it out with a pastry brush if you want. Then sprinkle with flour, tapping the edge of the pan with the heel of one hand as you rotate the pan with the other. This ensures that the flour is evenly distributed over the entire surface. Don't skip this step. You'll be sorry - trust me!
• Using an electric mixer, cream butter until fluffy. This will take a few minutes. Scrape the bowl and continue mixing.
• Add sugar and continue to cream well for 6 to 8 minutes, scraping down the bowl a couple of times to make sure it's all getting mixed in and fluffy.
• Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape.
• Add flour and milk alternately to creamed mixture, beginning and ending with flour.
  
• Add vanilla and continue to beat until just mixed. 
• Divide batter equally among prepared pans. Level batter in each pan by holding pan 3 or 4 inches above counter, then dropping it flat onto counter. Do this several times to release air bubbles and assure you of a more level cake. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until done. Cool in pans 5 to 10 minutes. Invert cakes onto cooling racks lined with plastic wrap. Wrap tightly and put in the freezer for at least 1 hour prior to decorating.

The Best Buttercream Frosting EVER
Seriously, this stuff is amazing. It frosts beautifully and isn't too sweet. I doubled this for the three-layer cake and had about a cup left over.

1 cup granulated sugar
6 Tbsp flour
1 cup milk
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1 tsp vanilla extract (you could use any flavoring you want)

Directions

• Measure sugar and flour into a medium sauce pan. Whisk together to incorporate the flour into the sugar. This makes it easier to dissolve. Add milk to pan and whisk until smooth. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens. It will seem like nothing is going to happen, when all of the sudden, it thickens up. Cook for just a few minutes after it begins to set up. Keep stirring; you don't want it to burn-and it will.
• Remove from heat and let cool completely.
• Once cooled, combine with butter in large mixing bowl or stand mixer and whip like crazy (use whisk attachment). Beat for at least 5 minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy. Use immediately. It can be kept in the fridge, but it hardens considerably and will need to warm up a bit before being spreadable.

Now some decorating pics and tips...

First of all, this is why cake should be a special treat, not an "oh, it's another co-worker's birthday, I deserve a piece of cake" kind of thing.


Butter. Lots and lots of butter. Two sticks for the cake and FOUR for the frosting. Yeah, that's why it's both soooooo good and sooooo bad.



This is the reason I used parchment paper to line the bottom of my pans. They release SO nicely. As long as you grease the sides and run a knife around the edge before turning out, you don't have to worry about leaving half the cake in the pan. You can see that I've lined the cooking rack with plastic wrap. That's so it's already in place, I just have to wrap it over the top.


Then I stack them up on a rack and pop the whole thing into the freezer for at least an hour. The layers are so much easier to handle when partially frozen and they ice better, too.


This is what I used for the dots—Airheads. I could have used fondant, but I wanted something people (ok, KIDS) would want to eat, and fondant isn't the best tasting stuff.


I unwrapped a piece then nuked it in the microwave for 7 seconds on power level 1. These melt very, very easily and I just wanted to soften them up a bit. Even so, they were difficult to roll out.


Sandwich the slightly warmed piece between parchment paper, NOT wax paper. They will stick. Or more accurately, the wax paper will stick to the candy. Blech.


Roll them to desired thickness. You have to start at one side and firmly push/roll, rocking back and forth, slowly squishing it flat. It's not for those with weak wrists. Mine were feeling it after it was all said and done.


I used my apple corer and a borrowed cookie cutter.  I needed leverage when using the cookie cutter because it was so small and you need a lot of force to cut through the candy.


So I used the bottom of a small dish. PLEASE put a cutting board underneath the candy if you're cutting on a soft surface - unless you want small circular cuts in your table!

My apple corer pops the disks out, but the tiny cookie cutter was another matter.


I used the end of my instant read thermometer holder to push them out.


And then, after what felt like far too long, I had lots of dots in two sizes and two colors.




Mmm... frosting.

I took out a cup or so for each color and tinted them blue and green to go with the theme. It's GO TIME.





Sure, it was far from perfect, but K was happy with it and it tasted great. I'd call that a success!