Pear bread and Liberace pumpkins, ahh...Fall is here

We have a lovely pear tree in our front yard that dumps pears every year from August to October. We let the deer eat lots of them, we share them with friends and eat plenty on our own, but I wanted to find a good recipe for baking with them. I made pear pie last year, which was yummy, and have tried out different crumble recipes, but this pear bread was really tasty. It's similar to zucchini bread, but with a somewhat more grainy, pear-like texture. Very moist and flavorful, great for breakfast and afternoon tea.
Recipe here.

In other news, aren't these the cutest/most gaudy Halloween decorations? I'm making one...or five. Directions here.

Trip to Ireland

Sorry about the radio silence, but we've been on a lovely, long trip in Ireland. My husband is from Northern Ireland and this trip has been long in the works.

It was great for him to get back home and wonderful to introduce our little one to all things Irish. I was thrilled to get back to the country that feels like my second home. I mean, look at how beautiful and green it is...

Here is a short video of Grafton Street in Dublin. It rained on this day (and on the other 16 of the 17 days we were there--hello Irish summer!)

 So the trip plus the fact that I am now six months pregnant (!) combine to make one pretty good excuse for not blogging for the last three months if I do say so myself! I hope to do more now that we are in fall again (ahhhh) and I'm itching to get baking and crafting.

Moosewood Brownies

I think I've found my brownie recipe. I baked off a tray of these decadent, fudgy brownies for a pool party recently. The pool party ended up getting canceled...and guess what happened to all the brownies?

No, I didn't eat all of them. I froze half (they freeze beautifully--are even more moist once thawed) and shared them with lucky friends who happened to drop by over the next few weeks. I must confess, however, that I probably ate about half of them. I can't help it, I love a seriously good brownie.

Moosewood Brownies

adapted from Moosewood Cookbook

• 5 ounces unsweetened chocolate (5 squares)
• 2 sticks butter 
• 1 3/4 cups packed light brown sugar
• 5 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3/4 c. flour
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (or anything else)

Directions:

1. Butter a 9x13-inch baking pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Gently melt the chocolate. Let it cool for about 10 minutes.
3. Cream the butter and sugar in a medium-sized bowl until light and fluffy.
4. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each.
5. Stir in the vanilla.
6. Stir constantly as you drizzle in the melted chocolate. After all the chocolate is in, beat well for a minute or two.
7. Stir in flour.
8. Mix just enough to blend thoroughly.
9. Spread the batter into the prepared pan.
10. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center come out clean.
11. Cut into squares while still hot, then allow to cool for at least 10 minutes, if you can wait that long.

Vegan Strawberry Shortcakes

I've been obsessed with biscuits lately. Scones, shortcakes, flaky biscuits--anything that I can throw some fresh fruit and cream on. I found this great recipe for vegan shortcakes. While they are great right out of the oven--delicate crumb, balanced and light vanilla flavor--they did harden up as the day wore on. No bother, I simply split and toasted them. It should be noted too that while the shortcakes are entirely vegan, the whipped cream is not. These would be just as delicious with dairy-free vanilla ice cream.

Vegan Shortcakes

 3 cups strawberries, hulled and sliced

 ¼ cup and 2 T. white sugar, plus more for sprinkling
1 ½ cup all-purpose flour
2 ½ t. baking powder
¼ t. salt
6 T. dairy-free soy margarine, cut into pieces
½ cup unsweetened plain almond milk, soymilk or rice milk

 

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with parchment and set aside. In a medium mixing bowl, toss the strawberries with the 2 T. sugar until well coated. Cover and place in the refrigerator for about 20-30 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, make the biscuits. In a big bowl, mix together the remaining ¼ cup sugar, flour, baking powder and salt until well-mixed. Add the dairy-free soy margarine and cut it in until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Add the non-dairy milk alternative and mix until the dough just begins to hold together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
3. On a lightly floured surface, turn out the dough and pat into 8 small round biscuits. Transfer the biscuits to the prepared baking sheet, sprinkle lightly with sugar, and bake about 18-22 minutes, or until golden. Allow the biscuits to cool on the baking sheet. To serve, place two biscuits on each plate with a scoop of whipped cream or dairy-free ice cream and a helping of the sugared strawberries.

Pretty cake

Isn't this cake just the prettiest? I've never seen ruffles on a cake before. Great idea for a little girl's birthday cake, or a big girl's. Photo and directions at the paper pony.

My sister's birthday gift

I made this video for my sister's birthday recently. I used Windows Live Movie Maker, which was really simple to learn and use.

It was inspired by this video that Wendy showed me, which is awesome embarrassingly accurate.

Easter, lemon curd and general fattiness

This is what I've been doing around here lately--eating lemon curd and baking rich, sugar-laden food. It's what I love--to bake and eat sweet, rich things. Then I watched a 60 Minutes that included a report on sugar consumption and how it affects our bodies (including a new study that suggests that cancer cells flourish and feed on sugar in our bodies) and how we get sugar in nearly every processed food we eat.

I eat a lot of sugar. I unapologetically love to bake things like the cinnamon rolls above, which had no less than three cups of sugar in them.  Anyway, while I'm late to the party, eating less sugar is something I'm thinking about now. I'm inspired to bake more nutritious, less sweet treats, if only to ward off cancer. Maybe it's time to finally hone my bread-making skills. I'm afraid of yeast. That or it just doesn't like me. I swear I never used a yeast that was still 'alive;' in none of my experiences has the yeast actually foamed up like it was supposed to. I always just waited, and then after 20 minutes (despite the lack of foam) made the damn bread anyway. And nine times out of 10, my bread didn't rise.

Ok, now's my time to give it another go. Oh, btw, the lemon curd pictured above was perfection. I could eat anything if it were slathered in lemon curd.

Snow day

We were lucky enough to make it to the snow in Lake Tahoe last weekend. The conditions were perfect, lots of snow on the ground but none on the road (no chains!)

Snowballs were thrown, one little snowman was made, and we even got to go tubing, which I insist is one of the most fun activities in the world. I swear Jack giggled all the way down the hill...each and every time.

And after it all, we got to come home to our sunny, warm little house. But I think someone would like to go back next year...

Caramel squares

My Irish husband recently turned 30 and he's not really into birthday cakes. He prefers these decadent, chewy caramel squares. So, per his birthday request, I made these the other day.

They are seriously delicious. My sister describes them as homemade twix bars.

A rich shortbread crust is topped with chewy caramel and covered with a layer of chocolate. The caramel in mine ended up pretty chewy, like, hard to cut through. I'll attempt to make it softer next time, because it was so hard that the layers separated upon cutting, making them a pain to eat. And to get the full effect of these, you want all three layers at once.

I used regular, salted butter in my version and the flavors of both the shortbread and caramel were perfectly balanced on the sweet and salty spectrum. I soo need enough salt in my desserts--without it, I think sweets can really fall flat. 

Caramel Shortbread Squares
adapted from allrecipes

  Ingredients

• 2/3 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
• 1 1/4 cups milk chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 C).
2. In a medium bowl, mix together 2/3 cup butter, white sugar, and flour until evenly crumbly. Press into an 8-inch square baking pan. Bake for 20 minutes.
3. In a 2 quart saucepan, combine 1/2 cup butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, and sweetened condensed milk. Bring to a boil. Continue to boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon for about 3 minutes. Pour over baked crust (warm or cool). Cool until it begins to firm.
4. Melt chocolate using the double-boiler method. Pour chocolate over the caramel layer and spread evenly to cover completely.  Cut into small squares. 

I want to make this!

 Isn't this hand-sewn bird just the prettiest thing you've seen all day?
The pattern can be found in this book:

Epitaphs

When we are in the dregs of winter, perhaps it's natural to dwell on the darker side of human experiences. Plants die in the winter, or at least hunker down and stretch deeper into the earth. Most animals get thinner as food supplies dwindle, and yet humans get notoriously fatter in the winter. I think it's good practice to live closely with the cycles of life.

In this vein, I present a little collection of possible epitaphs--thoughts on life and death that would not necessarily be carved on a headstone (what do we cremation-choosers use?) but at the very least, sum up a life-philosophy. I suppose the collection is part of what Gretchen Rubin calls my "ongoing, personal research project." Little notes scribbled on gum wrappers, books filled with ephemera, thoughts, quotes, lists of songs to play at my funeral (that's another post.) My mom is a notorious personal research note-taker. She may still have a misquoted saying from LA Story in her wallet.

This is my favorite of all possible epitaphs:

"The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
all goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier."  Walt Whitman

Another great one is:

"Is it so small a thing,
to have enjoyed the sun,
to have lived light in the Spring,
to have thought,
to have done...     Matthew Arnold

The weirdest one is on W.B. Yeates' grave in my opinion, although I love it.  I've had the pleasure of visiting this site. There is nothing quite like an old, overgrown Irish graveyard in the rain. It's so romantic.

Another bird feeder

I just purchased an awesome bird feeder. It's huge and plastic with no less than six perches. The little tree on one side of our house, where I hung the feeder, is now aflutter with tiny, pink-headed finches. They're mesmerizing.

And they are mighty hungry. They went through a half-gallon of seed in almost a week. So it reminded me how important it is, and how cool it is, to feed the winter birds.

Jack and I made this easy bird feeder a few months back. The good old pinecone slathered in peanut butter and rolled in seeds, then hung with string (or purple yarn in our case.)

Valentine sandwich cookies and a sweet purse

We made up a quick batch of sugar cookies last night, using Martha's sugar cookie recipe, which follows here. I eyeballed a quick frosting and tinted it pink for Valentine's Day. We, oh who are we kidding, I then wrapped them up and personalized them with some little stamps. Jack will be bringing some to friends at his preschool.

 Valentine Sandwich Cookies

• 4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract, or 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice and zest of 2 lemons
• 1/4 cup fine sanding sugar, for decorating (optional)

1. In a large bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking powder. Set aside.
2. Use an electric mixer to cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs.
3. Add flour mixture, and mix on low speed until thoroughly combined. Stir in vanilla or lemon juice and zest. Wrap dough in plastic; chill for about 30 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. On a floured surface, roll dough to 1/8 inch thick. Cut into desired shapes. Transfer to ungreased baking sheets; refrigerate until firm, 15 minutes. Remove from refrigerator, and decorate with sanding sugar, if desired. Bake until edges just start to brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Cool on wire racks.      Yield Makes about 16 large cookies or 30 2 1/2-inch cookies

In other news, I recently realized that the makeup bag in my purse is waay too big and takes up too much space in my bag. Rather than go out and buy one, I figured I'd make a quick pattern and whip one up. From start to finish, this little purse took all of two hours to sew--and the ribbon is sewn on my hand. I love quick, rewarding little projects.

 

Here's what I did:

First, I cut out long rectangular pieces from two fabrics. I used my quilting ruler to help make sure they were square, especially the point at the one end for the closing flap.

Then I sewed the layers together, right sides together, leaving the short, straight end open. I snipped the corners, then turned it out carefully.

Then I turned the open end in neatly and sewed that closed, sewing all around the perimeter of the piece, with about a quarter inch seam.

Then I folded it in threes, with the lining fabric on the inside. Mine is tan muslin. I also place the ribbon down, wrapping the ends in at one side.

 Then I ran it through my sewing machine and used short, strong stitches up the two sides.

Next, I pinned the ribbon around the base where I wanted it. (The ends were already sewn in when I stitched up the sides.) Then I hand sewed it on with dark blue thread.

And voila! Done.

Whale watching and rugelach

We spent the weekend looking for whales out at Bodega Bay. We saw a few sprays, but no actual whale was spotted. The weather was clear and sunny and cool--Jack ran around in the fields while my girlfriend, Bri, and I ate scones and jam.

And a few projects were finished when someone got a cold (Jack) and someone else (me) got to stay home from work and keep him company.
First: an aquarium scene made out of construction paper and sequins.

Second: some seriously delicious rugelach.

You can find the recipe in my favorite baking cookbook: Martha's Baking Handbook or online here. These are so friggin' good, I have a tummy ache from eating waaay too many. The flaky layers are almost pastry-like and hold chocolate slivers, finely-chopped walnuts, raisins and sticky apricot jam. The filling in my book is different from the one online, I used 1 cup of walnuts, 1/4 cup of sugar and only 3/4 cup of jam. I made half of ours with chocolate, the other with raisins, all with nuts. Too good.

And from what I remember from my coffee shop days, rugelach freeze really well once baked. (I've already put more than half in the freezer to deter a late night rugelach attack.)

And I found this in a drawer the other day, don't you just love these? Jack is fascinated by it, and always wants to drink the water out of it. Yuck.

Sweater quilt

I've been wanting to make this quilt for a long time. I think I saw one here a while back and loved it. As each one of my favorite sweaters begins to show its' age or gets too tight or just not right for me anymore, there's been a crafty voice in my head that whispers "sweater quilt, sweater quilt."

So over this incredibly lengthy and relaxing Winter break, I finally began The Sweater Quilt.

First, I gathered up seven sweaters that were all sizes medium or large and about the same, medium weight. I then grabbed by rotary cutter and self-healing mat and cut them into six by twelve-inch strips.

I arranged the strips on my queen-sized bed in a way that was pleasing to my eye.

Then I stacked each vertical row together, stacking them one on top of the other, so I'd know which way to sew the strips together in the pattern I wanted.

Then I sewed the strips together, stacking them and running them through my machine on a straight stitch with medium length. I ended up with 11 long vertical strips with about seven and a half 6x12-inch strips. I say one half because I didn't want any long horizontal seams. In other words, I didn't want my blocks to line up, so I added a piece that was 3 or 6 x12 at some spot on every vertical strip to give each strip a unique pattern. (See the picture with all the strips laid out--they don't line up horizontally.)

After sewing the strips I squared them up, making sure that they consistently measured six inches all the way down.

And that's as far as I've gotten. Next, I'll stitch all the long strips together. I'm excited to see all my sweaters together, in one big cozy blanket.