little bakers

I was organizing pictures on my computer when I realized I never posted any pictures from the girls' 1 year old baking shoot I did with them- and obviously the blog needed this cuteness, so here you go.
I'd been dreaming up combining my two favorite things ever since the girls were born. (my babies and my baking)

Set up:

I decided I would use these pics for their invites. It wasn't anything fancy, but I think the picture kinda speaks for itself and makes up for lack of graphic design skills.

I did it in place of a pre-party cake smash--it was a baby cake batter party!

 I made them some little aprons for the occasion.

 and I was planning to make fabric chef's hats, but since they were baking I wanted them to look like pastry chef hats, not just regular mushroom style chef hats.  I know that's ridiculous and no one would ever notice, so now I kinda wish I'd gone the other route they might have stayed on better...oh well, we'll live.

I was so pleased to see how quickly they accepted chocolate as a favorite food, my offspring.

 Help yourself.

 Pure adorableness, in raw form.

 Is there anything better than baking babies?

little June baker

 She likes her chocolate.

little Lyla baker

 Even after their bath I still found chocolate in Lyla's ear.

 We all had such fun!

the end.

Cutie Pie

I just had to show off this adorable apple pie I made for my young women last night. They only know that I bake good cookies so I was put in charge of a couple pies for our gratitude dinner, if only they knew I do more than desserts... oh well, it was a big hit once I convinced people we could cut into it.

fall treats

So Brad mentioned the other day that he hasn't really noticed me have any intense pregnancy cravings. As we thought about it, we realized it's probably just less distinguishable from my normal cravings... I love food so much I think I always have that pregnancy symptom! I've been neglecting food from a blogging perspective lately, but in real life our love is still in full bloom. Fall and food were made for each other- the stews, pot pies, pumpkin, squash, cinnamon, ginger goodness- love, love, love.
I've been too overwhelmed lately with house projects and such, I noticed I've only been blogging about the babies. I think I need to find a better balance... So I'll clue you in on what happened today- I made yummy donuts with my nieces and nephews! And these ones have a healthy-ish twist: they have wheat germ and I baked them, so I didn't feel bad letting the kiddos down a few.

Lazy Friday

Is it normal that after my first 12 hr shift I'm perfectly satisfied with spending my Friday night at home watching TV and "socializing" on the internet? Being married is cool like that, no pressure to go out and party when you're just tired.

We had dinner at Nuch's, a little Italian place here in Holladay. It's a tiny place and a family that came in after us got seated before us because they knew someone there. As we waited I got more and more annoyed, I wanted to tell them I'd been working at the hospital 12 hours and was starving and that people should have to wait their turn. I wanted to do that so bad, but I knew it was probably just my hunger craze talking and it wouldn't be satisfied by freakin' out and stormin' out. Luckily I held out, it was one of the most satisfying meals out I've eaten in a while. I got their special: homemade butternut squash and ricotta ravioli in browned butter w/ yummy roasted veggies. Brad got pesto pizza. We stuffed our faces, and wanted to never stop.

Intro to Fine Chocolate

Can you believe that cocoa pods are this huge? I've seen pics, but had no idea!

I absolutely  LOVED tonight! Brad and I went to an intro to fine chocolate tasting class at Tony Caputo's market. I'll admit when it began I wondered what we had got ourselves into. Tony's son taught the class and he began very seriously, almost yelling, explaining how all chocolate is not created equal.
I was slightly afraid of him, so this was the best pic we were willing to sneak of him teaching:

Turns out the class was fun and fabulous, well worth our $ in my opinion. We sat at a table with the founder of the chocolate society of Utah, which I am seriously considering joining.
We learned all about the process of cocoa bean to bar and the difference between quality chocolate and the typical "grocery store bar".  I happily learned that bitter isn't better and that cacao % isn't always what it seems.







check out all the fellow wannabe chocolate connoisseurs:

Smell, taste, check for flavor undertones. Even with the same ingredients and cacao %, depending on the bean type, location, and method of refining many were as different as night and day! It blew my mind.

My loot. I only took a tiny, adorable square of my most favorite chocolate I tried: the amaedei chuao, a symphony of flavors and #1 winner of the Academy of Chocolate World Chocolate award.

Good food, good company, good times.

This weekend was too fun! Brad worked hard for Zinch and we had Zinch dolla dolla bills all over the place. (that would be *fake* $ Brad took to the conference) :) I worked hard on my tan: naps in the sun by the pool with low SPF, two days in a row. I almost lost my pasty-winter white skin. Wonderful!

These are our friends, Cam & Brittny: They took us all over the place and we had fun hanging out with them and their bebe.

Brad had to work some of the time (that’s why we went there), but we still got to spend most of the time together and we had a blast. Cam and Brittny took me to a fun hike called camelback, I loved it! I haven’t been on a hike in who knows how long. I got a little vertigo on some of the steep parts, but overall it was great. We couldn’t go all the way to the top because it was getting too intense for lil’ Mckenna. And I don’t blame her, I would have been dying in a onesy, it was hot in shorts & a t-shirt.

Besides that we ate some amazing food.
We had a BBQ out by the pool with cam and brittny. It was tasty and brittny taught me an easy, cool way to cut peppers for kabobs.

Me and brad ate at a great Persian restaurant (reminiscent of the food in morocco, which we adored), mango’s yummy Mexican food, creamy and delicious FAT FREE and NO SUGAR ADDED (what the what?) gelato, and pizza from grimaldis! We ate this pizza in Brooklyn right before brad proposed. I’m glad I didn’t know then it was a chain restaurant because I probably would have thought it was less cool. But… now I’m so glad it’s a chain restaurant because we got to eat there on our trip to AZ and it’s the yummiest pizza ever! If you travel somewhere where there’s a grimaldis I recommend it, it’s truely delicious and not too pricey.

Very satisfying weekend, hopefully it gave me enough juice to get through this week.

Food Loco

We're on a diet this week. My sister Julie likes to call weight gained after marriage “happy weight”, but the problem is you eventually realize you are slowly becoming a less attractive person, which isn’t so happy. So I'm going to go ahead and reminisce about food we won’t be eating this week.

On friday I wrote a "rigerously graded" book report on "Mountains beyond Mountains", because I'm in Jr. high. I also made 9 bundt cakes for Brad's missionary reunion, and took pictures as I thought of how I was making my own mountains beyond mountains instead of writing about someone else's more meaningful ones. Mine tasted better.

Flavors included: Southern Strawberry, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip, Coca-Cola, Lemon Poppyseed, Red Velvet, Chocolate Fudge, Pineapple upside-down cake, and vanilla. I wish I had a pic of the pineapple one right when I took it out of the pan, it was pretty.

For our St. Patty's meal we had glazed corned beef, colcannon, and Irish soda bread. The flavors were wonderful.

I realized I forgot to post anything about Brad’s birthday meal, and I really went food loco on brad’s b-day. It was our first birthday married and he was turning 30, kinda a big deal so I wanted to make it special. For breakfast we had waffles with homemade buttermilk syrup, scrambled eggs, and candied bacon. Yes, I skipped most of my first class. Dinner on the other hand, is where things really got crazy. I had class till 4, then I got home and made mint chip ice cream and oreo brownies to have for dessert.

I decided for dinner to attempt my own take at Papalote’s triple threat burrito. (a SF winner that I’ve never even tasted, I’ve got no clue if it even resembled it.) A large tortilla filled with everything: Carne asada, achiote chicken, grilled prawns, homemade papalote roasted salsa, guacamole, jack cheese, refried black beans, guacamole, sour cream, Mexican rice, and Brad’s favorite jalapeno chips on the side. It was fun learning to use some ingredients I’ve never worked with before: pepitos, achiote paste, chilies del arbol, California chili pods, etc. Too fun!


After all that work I ate the fabulous concoction with gusto, but was haunted by the fact that Brad would have been just as satisfied eating a café rio burrito and store-bought mint ice cream. He does recognize when things taste yummy and is quick to thank me, but he’s also a boy, just barely learning that burger king is gross. I think next time I go to all that work I should make sure there are some girls to appreciate it, unless of course it’s Brad’s birthday. :)

Jamaican Jerk

Earlier this week I learned that you can’t get scotch bonnet peppers in Utah. I even went to a Caribbean and African “supermarket”. There were 3 almost-bare, dusty shelves and luckily they had a bottle of scotch bonnet sauce, it was worth the suspicious looks I received from the lady in a headdress running the store. I’ve wanted to make Jamaican Jerk chicken, and last night I decided to make it into a pizza. I feel like it was my first successful attempt at yummy, soft pizza dough. I feel so proud! I have a pizza stone (it was just cooling on a cookie sheet), but all of the sudden I want to go buy a pizza peel and make pizza all the time- margarita, pesto, alfredo, BBQ chicken…so many options. I think I want to have Pizza Fridays now at our house. Too much? Naw… that crust was too good. All you gotta do is say the word and we’ll let you in on the party. As long as you can handle the fact that your pizza might be rhombus shaped rather than circle...

The Food of Love

My husband and I shared our first Valentines together and in order to make it special I obviously had to revolve the day around food. I decided to make Msemen for breakfast, a "crepe" like flat bread that we had for breakfast each day on our honeymoon in Morocco. I make us each 2 just like we had there- one smothered with nutella and folded up, the other "fromage" with laughing cow's creamy swiss cheese. I decided to mix things up and threw some scrambled eggs in the cheese one.

For lunch I attempted to recreate one of our favorite meals from the Utah County days, Lomo Saltado (served with Papa a la Huancaina sauce). We frequented a wonderful Peruvian hole-in-the-wall restaurant called "El Rinconcito del Inca". It was basically a make-shift restaurant in a peruvian family's basement with no more than 5 tables. Everyone who worked there was part of the Peruvian family, except this one random Scandinavian who spoke little English, I never did figure out his role there, but it just added to the quirky uniqueness of the location. I've driven past there several times since they took their sign down, I wish I knew what happened to them... I've got the sauce down though. (learned to make Aji-de-Gallina and Papa-a-la-Huancaina while living in Chile with a Peruvian.) The Lomo Saltado sauce also had the flavor right, but I think I the meat would have been softer if I had time to marinate it longer.

And then there was dinner. Almost daily I drive past Tuscany, this beautiful restaurant in a Chatoe-esque fancy builiding just down the road from us. I see candles lit on talbes by the window, and I envision getting dressed up and enjoying some exquisit meal there with my husband. So as Valentines and our 1/2 Anniversary approached, it was definitely in the running. We called and after hearing that filet mignon, chicken picatta, and veal marsala were on the Valentine's menu I was hooked. Unfortunately, despite rave reviews from friends and family who have been there, Tuscany did not live up to our expectiations. We ordered filet mignon, only to be told a 1/2 hour later they had run out. After finishing our soup we waited 45 min before the next course arrived. After waiting for dessert we were told that they had run out of that too. All in all the service was bad, they were underprepared for a big fancy restaurant day like Valentines, and our 9:00 reservation had us finished with our meal after 11:00. I kept imagining what a special meal I could have made at home for a fraction of the cost, and thats exactly what I plan to do next year. And that was the conclusion of our Moroccan, Peruvian, Italian-American dining Valentines.

Sure, we look happy enough...but I can still envision the empty dream of what could have been with dinner at home.

MSEMEN (MOROCCAN CREPE/FRIED BREAD)
1 ½ C flour
1/2 C fine semolina or pan harina (or normal flour)
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp yeast (or baking powder, I just added that cause I'm too lazy to use yeast in the morning)
3/4 C warm water
Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl or mixer. Add water, and mix to form a dough. Add more water/flour if necessary to make a soft dough you can knead. Knead 5 min until smooth and elastic. (The mixer works fine). Pour a little oil onto a cookie sheet, take balls of dough and using the oiled surface with oiled hands spread out dough and push down to a thin square shape, thin as possible (1/8”), don't worry about the oil, there was no fat added to the dough, so be generous. Cook on a hot ungreased skillet. After cooking one side spread the nutella or cheese on the cooked side, fold up in 1/3s and eat hot. It'll taste better if you go to Morocco and have a lady on the street make it for you, but since most of us can't do that very often, this is pretty good too.

Time to Eat Beef, Time to Blog

I have this whole week off for fall break, but sadly my husband doesn’t, which leaves time for lengthy experimental recipes (like bouf a la bouguinonne), learning to use power tools around the house, and learning to blog. I haven’t quite figured out this whole blog thing, I get facebook much better. I’m going to do some more sum up journal kind of entries to warm me up. Maybe that’s how this will work for me, just write for myself and if someone else happens to read it, that's fine too. Maybe I’ll figure out how to get more interesting later on.