Minor victories

Last year I baked a pie at the end of a long day.  This year I waited until the morning after a string of long days so that coffee could factor into the equation and kick-start my brain while I put together some blueberry crumb bars to take to Easter lunch at the Vaughns.  So even with a change in the jobs that's been *mostly* for the better, I still do this crazy tax thing and I'm still incredibly busy in light of this 4/15 situation.  Hmmm.  Guess I'd better look for minor victories where I can find them.

So for this minor victory I baked and didn't work on Easter.  I'll take it.  Especially when Gracie greets me with hugs and smiles and giggles and unabashed joy for all the Easter festivities.  Love this kiddo to bits.  Thanks for having us over, Vaughns!  Now, everyone enjoy the cuteness.

Omg, I am sooooooo excited about finding these eggs!!!  Except the ones I can't see or reach - geez, Dad.

Excuse me, this basket is getting loaded down with eggs - a little help?

Chocolate...chocolate...chocolate...

At the end of a long day...

...I baked a pie.

Lemon meringue, to be specific.  And while a normal person might come home from a a full day at the office on a Saturday and fall into bed (wait...do normal people work full days at an office on Saturday?  Oh, busy season, you are about to be the end of me...and I haven't even finished doing our taxes yet...hmmmm), I baked a pie.  And it was awesome.  I took a deep breath and relaxed and did something I love to do.


I did have a reason for baking the pie - it's a little dangerous to just BAKE A PIE and leave it in this house.  Because I would eat the whole thing.  But this thing is going to Easter lunch.  Vaughn home.  I hope the filling sets up - I experimented with a new recipe.  And if it doesn't, then we suddenly have lemon pudding with a meringue topping and bits o' crust sprinkled about.  Which works just fine for me.

When a task looms large...make ice cream. Really.

Task looming large:

 
Another task, but enjoyable task, that helps with task looming large:

When faced with addressing a rather large pile of wedding invitations...I recommend ice cream.  Homemade ice cream.  Courtesy of a wonderful shower gift from my future mother-in-law and a few key ingredients...including Guinness.  Beer ice cream.  Not beer with ice cream, which was extremely disappointing in Prague, but actual beer ice cream.  Potential kitchen adventure ACCOMPLISHED.  David Leibovitz's Guinness-milk chocolate ice cream.  So good.

And obviously the invitations have made it out by now.  Phew.  Because with two weeks to go, that would be kinda disastrous.  Now if only all the RSVP cards could come back...

God bless America. And cake balls.

Happy 4th of July!!   Oh, what?   That was a month ago?   Gotcha...just a touch behind on catching up on the blog.   Don't worry, I'll get there.   It's a little different blogging from The Oven rather than the D of C just because...well...life is different.   But I still want to blog it.   So here goes. =)

First and foremost, I'm back in the land of hatch chiles!!!   So when we came across some at the farmer's market over Pendarvi weekend, I immediately snatched up an entire bucket with big plans - namely, a smallish 4th of July bash coming up where Craig and I would whip up food for approximately twenty when we knew our attendance would be six adults + one cute baby.  We sometimes go just a little bit overboard...

Back to the chiles - I roasted them over open flames (only a teensy bit dangerous, right?), and they miraculously transformed into burger toppings and hatch chile guacamole.  Yum x 1000.

In addition to the massive amount of black bean and corn salsa...and burgers...and chips...I also went a little dessert crazy with red velvet cake balls and mascarpone stuffed strawberries - let's hear it for the red, white, and blue!  This was my first time actually making cake balls, and I have to thank Sarah for introducing me to the tasty little creations years ago...about time I tackled them!  And yeah, it's a little bit messy.

Eeeeekkk, scary red velvet hands!!  Good camera work, Craig. =)



It's an army of patriotic cake balls!  Ummm, yes, one cake kinda makes a LOT of cake balls.



I think they're just adorable!

And don't worry, I know there are more adorable things in life than stuffed strawberries...adorable things like Zach and Gracie playing ball together (well, kinda) under the kitchen table.  Squeeee, I love it!!  Sweet kids.

That's what I call baby-sitting.

A certain someone's mom has gotten pretty good with a sewing machine lately, and in yet another display of adorable, Gracie's 4th of July outfit was just too cute for words - we even got her to wear the hat for just a couple of quickly snapped pictures.

Happy 4th of July, everyone!  Only a month late!  Hey, America's awesome no matter what day it is.  Except for maybe now with those debt crisis disaster terribleness going on...oh, I'm sure there's still awesome to be had.  There's optimism and confidence for you.

Smoke it

I'm now the proud owner (by inheritance through engagement to a man who loves BBQ with all his heart and soul) of an awesome grill and this thing called a "smoker," which apparently transforms meats in magical ways.  I have no idea how to use it, but I'd like to think I could figure it out if we had some kind of emergency that required smoking. 

To celebrate this device and the man who comes with it AND to ring in the season of "hey let's have people over and grill/BBQ and GOSH it's hot outside!!"...obviously pre-Memorial Day festivities were needed at the Erin/Craig/Harry/Zach residence with some good friends.  And plenty of meat.  At least two pounds per person.  Because that's what Craig believes.*  At least I also got him to believe in Texan seasoning for the brisket.  Go Texan!

Ok, and we also MADE BBQ sauce.  Craig went mustardy, and I went tomatoey.  Welcome to my new meaty, saucy life.**  Another new part of that life is a

In attendance at this bash?  A number of wiggly babies, both human and canine***...

...and sometimes the human and the canine come together when you realize that the massive couch-shaped dog bed is just perfect for the baby who needs a little bit of a prop to assist with self-bottle feeding.


Zach's good at sharing, Gracie - you're in luck.

Oh yeah, we also had plenty of hungry friends here, too, who did all they could with the massive amount of food taking up every inch of counter space in the kitchen.

So great to spend some quality time with good friends.  And some good meat.  Lots and lots of good meat.


*I was sending people home with meat bags.  We had a LOT of food.
** Yes, I realize how ridiculous this sounds.  Just go with it.
*** There's a feline wiggly baby, too, but you can believe he was in hiding or held captive in his room for the vast majority of this.Sam's Club membership, since we actually have room to store 28,000 rolls of paper towels AND they offer much more reasonable prices on giant slabs of meat.  Oh boy.

Delicious snacking opportunities

I really love desserts.  And baking.  And sharing excessive amounts of butter with other people in order to get these dangerous baked goods out of my house where they won't directly apply themselves to my hips/waistline/arm flab deposits.  Which is why over the past couple months at work when we've been...well, busy, to say the least...we try to encourage each other along with the promise of treats around 2:30 in the afternoon.  Snack attack!!  Crazy me, who loves kitchen adventures, signed up for three go-rounds.

First there were homemade Oreos.  Which were sooooo good.  And also took absolutely forever to make.  Although I kinda love going into a Zen mode of rolling out 150ish balls of cookie dough.

Then there were the butterscotch bourbon bars, which I rebranded as butterscotch bourbon cake when I quadrupled the recipe for everything except the brown sugar.  Oops.  Fortunately, it was fantastically delicious and no one knew they were a semi-screw up until I shared my original plan.  Baking adventures are fun!

And finally, rocky road brownies.  Which if you don't pay very close attention to when under the broiler for a little marshmallow toasting action...ummm...there could be something along the lines of actual flames and some shrieking and a finished product that looks something like this:

Fortunately, you can just scrape off the blackened goo (while standing in a faintly campfire-s'mores scented kitchen, I might add), pile some fresh marshmallows on top, and give it another shot.  And then you'll end up with something like this, which is much pleasing to the eye...and the smoke alarm.

Yup, that's a triple batch of brownies.  At least on this one I got the math right.

Oh, and for Easter tomorrow I'll be contributing blueberry crumb bars (already tested and approved) and caprese pasta salad to the spread.

Anyone out there have some start-up capital for the bakery? 

Weekend update

- Hired a wedding coordinator/planner.  This did great, great things for my sanity.  Did you know planning a wedding takes a lot of work and time?  It's kinda remarkable.
- Met Molly and Robert in Ft. Worth for a great dinner at Los Vaqueros and an awesome, Texas-tastic concert at Billy Bob's - Wade Bowen!!  I love this man.  God bless Texas country music.

Not the greatest picture, but it's a man with a guitar...what more do you need to know?

- Made vanilla bean panna cotta with strawberries in red wine syrup as a dessert contribution for carb-loading dinner at Kami's for the race day girls.  So, SO great to spend some quality time with these good people.

- Speaking of race day girls, cheered on Kami and Belinda as they totally kicked butt in the Dallas Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon.  Way to go, ladies!!  I'm really proud of you for attacking this the way you did and finishing strong.  Also, thanks for a reason to go to Cafe Brazil and eat one my favorite things...chilaquiles!!

Oh, by the way, my roommate gets into town tomorrow.  My roommate/fiancé/"the boy" and his giant dog.  Harrison and I are both EXCITED and and a little freaked out.  Actually, Harrison has no idea what's really about to happen.  But I've tried to warn him.  And I can't wait for Craig to be here.

Busy much? Also, adventures in weight loss

The last three weeks had just a touch of whirlwind to them.  You know, moving back to Texas.  Into an actual house.  And starting a "new" job.  In the middle of busy season.  And having Craig here one weekend and my parents the next and then Craig again.  And I'm going to NYC this weekend for a very dear friend's wedding.  And did you know that I've spent more time in Home Depot in the last three weeks than I have in my entire life?

And I don't want the blog to die.  Poor neglected blog.  It's had a whole lot of zilch going on the last few weeks.  I'm back, little blog, I'm back.

Especially since I need to document the latest step in the healthy living plan...

I could stand to lose a few pounds.  For health's sake.  And vanity's sake, of course - I don't want to worry AS much about my arm flab in a wedding dress here in about eight months.  I've put on about 15-20 pounds in the last year or so (I totally blame Craig taking me on all these amazing dates and cooking for me...plus I'm also buying into the theory that falling in love makes you gain weight...it's possible!), and I'd like to take it off.  Plus another ten on top of that to get to a healthy, stable place.  And Trinity's kinda in the same boat.  Well, not the wedding dress thing, but the "could stand to lose a few" thing.  So he offered up a weight loss challenge, pitting us against each other, sparking the competitive spirit in both us.  Motivation!!

Plus it makes it more serious if you give it a logo with Harry Potter font.  How could that be anything but motivational and awesome?

We weighed in a week ago, set our goal weights, and are going to check our percentage lost every two weeks - the winner (who's really the "loser") gets some kind of prize from the other.  And the ultimate winner (whoever hits their goal weight first) gets something awesome.  We just haven't decided quite what yet.

So far...I'm not off to a stellar start.  I mean, I just got back to the land of Tex-Mex.  What am I supposed to do, say no to shrimp taquito day at Chuy's (Wednesday, of course) or fried chicken taco day (Thursday, if you're interested) at Taco Joint?  Maybe I should also think twice about making a triple batch of homemade oreos (I took them all to work, don't worry - not a single one left in the house.  But of course I still ate plenty during the baking process...).  And I should actually join a gym and actually go there.  Getting on a consistent workout schedule would really help.  Which is where a 9-to-5 schedule would come in handy.  But no excuses!  Time to do this thing!

It's good to be back in Texas, y'all, even if enchiladas tempt me at every turn.

That health kick I mentioned?

Yes, it's time.  So I got things off to a good start by going to the grocery store and loading up my cart with a plethora of fruits and veggies.  I had a minor environmental guilt trip as I kept filling up those little plastic bags, so maybe it's also time to jump on the recycling bandwagon.  I'm an occasional recycler, but I could be a lot better about it....hmmm, add that to the life/planet improvement plan as well. 

Actually, the healthy eating will contribute to the financial improvement plan as well - if I actually take my lunch instead of eating out almost every day, that should help.  Man.  This is looking good so far. 

Lunch plan #1 - spicy quinoa salad.  I cut the recipe in half so I won't get sick of it and didn't put in nearly that much olive oil - just a drizzle.  Also a slightly higher ratio of quinoa to veggies.  And definitely an entire jalapeño for the half recipe, because this is me we're talking about.  To be accompanied by a random piece of fruit.  It's tasty.  This could work.



It's even kinda Christmas colored!  I'm totally and unintentionally in the holiday spirit!

Healthing it up a bit

When it comes to Thanksgiving...I'm a big traditionalist.  Same menu every year, always followed by the Cowboys game.  Light breakfast to leave plenty of room for the usual suspects.  Roasted turkey, cornbread dressing, green bean casserole...I mean, it just wouldn't feel like Thanksgiving if we had it any other way.  But this year we opted to change things up just a little bit in the interest of maintaining the health kick currently going on (rather successfully, I might add) in the Bryan home.

In lieu of our usual sweet potatoes swimming in their sweet syrup and topped off with marshmallows, we did a medley of roasted root vegetables.  I rediscovered that I still don't like turnips, and rutabegas were a totally new thing for all of us - they were...different.  Kinda crunchy, almost like an apple.  But tastier than turnips!

We added another green veggie to the table in lieu of the mashed potatoes that sometimes show up - browned brussel sprouts with orange and toasted walnuts.  The orange was a total experiment, but the general consensus here was one of "mmm, that's pretty good" - you know, for a vegetable.

And while I do love the cranberry sauce from a can with its perfect rings and the "splooq!" sound it makes when it finally releases, we did our own this year with fresh cranberries and Granny Smith apples and a little cinnamon and sugar - YUM.

Don't worry, I've also had two pieces of pie today - pumpkin AND coconut cream.  But we've got the Wii back out, and I'm sure I'll burn off some calories.  At least enough to take care of...well...the butter on my roll.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  It's wonderful to be home with my family.

Pencils of justice!

My sister made it out of the forest and came to visit last weekend!  We had a lovely time doing important things like exploring historically significant buildings, marveling at the awe of our nation's capital, AND...shopping.  Struck a nice balance, if I do say say myself.  One of her few DC-ish requests was a stop at the Supreme Court, which sadly isn't open to the public on weekends, so we hustled ourselves over there as soon as she got in on Friday afternoon.  Side note: it's kinda fun to hop in a cab and say "to the Supreme Court, please!"

We missed the last guided tour by a few minutes, but still had an hour or so to wander the hallowed halls of justice, which are so SO impressive...

...and we spent probably more time than is necessary admiring the set of self-supporting spiral staircases, which are just entirely too cool and lend themselves nicely to fun sister shots...

...and then we also found cool sculptures of the justices (justii?), and I had fun taking pictures of those because I take excessive pictures of absolutely EVERYTHING...

...and then because we were short on time, we cut short the educational/awe-inspiring part of the trip and headed over to the most important part - the gift shop, of course!  There we found quite possibly the most awesome board game ever...

...as well as PENCILS OF JUSTICE!!  How awesome are these?!?  Ok, probably not quite as awesome as I make them out to be, but any double-eraser pencil that basically functions as a Supreme Court gavel is pretty outstanding in my book.  These, of course, are the only thing we actually purchased.

Then, since we had some lovely late afternoon fall lighting in our favor, we had to do some Supreme Court photo shoots.  Good times were had by all, I assure you.

Then we went hunting for squirrels on our way over to Union Station....

...and stopped for some lovely shots of the Capitol, which also has its very own reflecting pool.  You're not so special, Washington Monument!

A delicate balancing act!

Upon our arrival at Union Station, we immediately had to ring the Freedom Bell.  And it actually did ring a little bit! 

After stopping by the convention center to pick up our tickets to see Paula Deen at the Metropolitan Cooking and Entertaining Show (yes, the Queen of Butter!!), we headed in the general direction of home...and dinner...but not without a stop at a bar I've been meaning to vist, The Passenger.  It's a very cool bar that mixes very cool drinks and serves really tasty tiny olives and Marcona almonds.  I'm kinda in love.

Then we had some tasty Thai food for dinner and did exciting things like make a grocery list and go to Whole Foods (where we almost got stuck in the parking garage - not cool!) and chill to the "Gilmore Girls."  That's just how we roll.

We slept as long as Harry would let us (silly kitty!), then enjoyed some cake for breakfast along with LOTS of coffee and even more "Gilmore Girls," and then we pulled ourselves together and walked over to the convention center to take in the food insanity.  It will never cease to amaze me how people line up for free samples of ANYTHING.  Let's just say Amanda and I were big fans of the Northeast Beef Promotion Board (or something like that...I missed their actual name), where they were handing out STEAK NACHOS WITH GUACAMOLE.  And no one was lining up for this.  What is WRONG with you people?!?  At any rate, that satisfied us as we fought our way through the hordes and into the "theater" to check out Paula Deen in all of her buttery hilariousness.

And she did not disappoint.  This woman is a hoot.  I mean, truly ridiculous and quite entertaining.  We enjoyed her antics for about an hour and a half while also taking in the delicious smells of Thanksgiving that were wafting our way...cornbread dressing and glazed ham (I'm sure she would have opted for turkey, but seeing as how Smithfield owns her these days, it was most definitely a Thanksgiving ham) and sweet potato gooey butter cakes, oh my!

Then, time to escape the crowds and take in a quick afternoon snack at Busboys and Poets before heading home to embark on a tapas adventure.  We rounded up three kinds of Spanish cheese and a couple of cured meats and sliced French bread and scooped out quince paste and olives and grapes and then attempted to recreate patatas bravas (which I LOVED in Spain...and I'll tell you about them...I promise) and madengrilled chicken skewers and some of the most amazing cookies ever in the form of salted-almond honey wafers, which had me very concerned when we were attempting to make them happen...but they turned out to be delicious and amazing.  Oh, and of course there was sangria!  Then we had a couple of boys come over to eat all this food and watch football and have game night.  It was awesome.

Bobbing for apples, sangria-style

Quite a spread!  And yes, I made cheese signs out of sticky notes and toothpicks - it made me so happy. =)

Sunday was reserved for shopping adventures.  After all, what are sisters for?  Oh, and we also ate more cake.  Kinda perfect.  Great weekend.  Photo spread available here.