The Return of the King - and my Advent "Wreath"

Hi everyone! I'm back!

::looks around at empty room::

That's ok, I expected that. After all, I'm really just talking to myself, like always, with this blog. I haven't been rememberwriting as much as I really should though - especially if I want to actually preserve any memories. And there's always my daily phone pictures.

But I digress.

I've been pinning shit like maaaaaad lately, and finding I can actually accomplish things whilst ignoring dishes and laundry. Oops. Well, at least I have fun stuff to show for it!
The onset of colder weather has been harsh, with colds (me) and croup (B) and ear infections (S), oh my. We've also been staying inside while having our bedroom and bathroom ceilings fixed and painted, and it's just about on the level with waterboarding for two small excitable children.
So, crafting.

I didn't get to church to make my annual Advent wreath this year, so I wanted to try something a little different. I found this on Pinterest: click me, I'm a link to an awesome bread pan Advent "wreath" from Homespun Living!

And it was my inspiration - er, pinspiration (which always makes me think of perspiration) for my very own:

(Please excuse my semi-used candles...)

Some of the ladies on my crafty group were talking about something called chalk paint, and I just happened to run into some at the Crafty Store #3 the other day, so I decided to take one of our old bread pans and give it a whirl.

Bread pan, halfway through:

And then I glued some taper holders into the pan, added some pine snippings from the branches we cut off of our spider-less tree:

Et voila. We lit the first one today - I let B practice. He blew it out mid-prayer. Ah well.

hollaaaaaaaaa

yeah, sorry guys. If there are any of you still reading, that is, lol. I've been pretty darn busy with the burrito for a while - not a food-related burrito, the baby. Yeah, it figures he'd have a bunch of food-related nicknames.

SO, the first thing I've actually made in a while that I haven't made before/doesn't involve a box is...

COOKIES!

How did you guess it would be a baked good?

This December was my first time making two types of cookies, Peanut Butter Blossoms and Thumbprints. I've had the Thumbprints bookmarked for a while to be made, but the PB ones were a special request from hubs. They were made for the cookie exchange at work, and were received pretty well. I thought the thumbprints could've used a bit more sugar. Or, I should have put more sugar in the nut topping that I rolled them in. Anywho, the thumbprints were better. Go fig!

Also - I got a brand spankin new nikon lens for my D40 from Santa, so pictures to come should be freakin spectacular. Only thing I'm missing is a giant light!

Peanut Butter Blossoms
courtesy Hershey, founder of all things good. Like me. The recipe is on their website, and it's more fun than mine, so I'm not gonna c&p it here - the only change is that I used room-temp butter instead of shortening, because, well, shortening grosses me out. No, I've never made biscuits, and of course, I'd use shortening for those. Now move along, self-righteous shortening devotees.

Thumbprints
courtesy Martha, natch.

Makes about 3 dozen.

Ingredients:

* 1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
* 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
* 1 large egg, separated
* 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
* 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
* 1/2 cup whole blanched almonds
* 1/2 cup jam, or preserves

Notes: I doubled the recipe, and used both apricot and black raspberry jelly, and also used almonds for the apricot ones, but pecans for the black raspberry ones.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together butter and 1/2 cup sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add egg yolk and vanilla; beat well. Whisk together flour and salt, and add to mixture, beating on low until combined.
2. In a small food processor, combine almonds with remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, and process until almonds are finely ground. In a small bowl, lightly beat egg white. Form dough into 1-inch balls. Dip in egg white, then in almond-and-sugar mixture. Place balls on parchment-lined baking sheet. Make a deep indentation in the center of each ball with your finger or bottom of a thick wooden spoon.
3. Bake for 10 minutes, remove from oven, and press down the centers again. Fill the center of each cookie with about 1 teaspoon of jam. Rotate sheets, and bake until golden brown, 10 to 12 minutes more. Remove from oven, and place on a wire rack to cool.

These came out really well, but the black rasp jelly did run over in a couple. The apricot stayed together a bit better. Next time, I might splurge on the black rasp jam with fruit instead of the jelly kind. Also - I will make sure I mix the nuts and sugar better before I dip the cookies. I used my coffee bean grinder to chop the nuts as I didn't want to clean the whole darn food processor. And also, the processor may still have been dirty from last week's mac and cheese. Oh, I have to post that recipe too, gar.

PB Blossoms:

Thumbprints:

a really bad phone picture, but you get the idea.

Pasta with Peas and Proscuitto

I saw some shelling peas this weekend at the local street farm market and had never worked with fresh peas before, so wanted to try something with them. I immediately thoguht of a pasta dish with a cream sauce that I had seen...somewhere...

Since I couldn't remember, I just went online and searched. One dish that caught my eye was Pasta with Peas and Proscuitto on the Martha Stewart site. It looked good and had everything I wanted, I just had to find some pasta to go with it. I have about 10 boxes/bags of pasta in the house, but none of them were fettuccine, so the pasta original to the recipe was out. I decided on the penne I had gotten from BJ's, which was a gigantic pack of farfalle and I think mezzo penne? I know it's smaller penne. It's pasta, works for me.




I started shelling the peas, and after a while found the quickest way to do it: pop the end of the pea open by squeezing it, run your thumb down the side to open, and run your finger down the inside of the pod to pop the peas out. Works for me, at least.



Mmm, fresh peas.




Pasta with Peas and Proscuitto
Martha Stewart ~ Everyday Food

Ingredients
Serves 4
Coarse salt and ground pepper
12 ounces fettuccine
1 tablespoon butter
1 shallot, finely chopped (1/4 cup) I omitted this, didn't have them at the farm market and didn't want to run to the store
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 package (10 ounces) frozen peas, thawed
8 slices prosciutto (about 4 ounces total), halved lengthwise and thinly sliced crosswise, about 1 cup (a note in this recipe says it's easier to slice when chilled & rolled)
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving (optional)
Directions
In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta until al dente, according to package instructions. Reserve 1 cup pasta water; drain pasta and return to pot.
Meanwhile, make sauce: In a large skillet, melt butter over medium-low heat; add shallot and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add cream, peas, and prosciutto; bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Simmer until peas are heated through, 3 to 4 minutes.
Stir in lemon zest and juice. Pour sauce over pasta; add Parmesan, and season generously with salt and pepper. Add enough reserved pasta water to thin sauce as desired. Serve immediately; top with additional Parmesan, if desired.



This was fantastic. And so easy, it's almost a 30-minute meal. The Hubs loved it, but was half-asleep so I didn't get a whole lot of feedback other than "mmm" and an empty bowl in about five seconds.

Verdict:

Chicken Marsala

I've been wanting to make this for a long time now, and have honestly been scared. I didn't think I'd ever have it as good as I've had in a restaurant, mostly because I am not a fan of mushrooms and didn't want to buy them when I'd just pick them out anyway.

**for proof that I am not a fan, and that I did in fact try mushrooms and make odd noises and cringe and almost spit them out, please talk to A. (the stuffing in them was really good though!)**

I asked The Girls about it (from the WC Nest board of course) and some had done this before, so I decided to Go For It. My little brother got me a Martha DVD with the chicken marsala episode some time ago, and I though I didn't watch it while making this or even the day before, I did use her recipe.

Making the chicken...one done, one in process.


Saucy Times.


It was such an easy way to make a good chicken dinner, lemme tell you. Chicken + seasonings + flour? Fry it in a big pan? Good Stuff. I used my new Paula Deen gigantic frying pan for this one. I originally asked for it for Cmas because the Hubs didn't like making things (grilled cheese) in my non-Teflon ss pans. But as he's been busting his butt in school/work, I got to it first - AFTER soaking it in a solution of water & baking soda to dissolve the protective layer. I made it with half a box of penne, and poured some of the sauce over that too.

The only thing different from the restaurants was that the sauce was not thick at all - more like a broth really. I'm attributing this to the lack of mushrooms. I'm sure I could just thicken it with flour, but I wasn't sure what that would do to the taste. As it was, it tasted spectacular. The sauce was a wonderful addition to the pasta as well, giving the plain pasta a little flavor.

Verdict:

Wherein I post more pictures of cupcakes.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but I lurve me some bake sales.

This time, it was more though... a bake off.

So I pulled out the big guns (frosting tips) and got down and dirty in my kitchen (baked a lot). I made the Hershey's Chocolate Cake and Frosting recipe and the BC Silver White Cake and MS Basic Buttercream, and then mixed them up - so I came up with 12 chocolate/chocolate, 12 chocolate/buttercream, 12 white/chocolate, and 12 white/buttercream.

Yum.

Martha Stewart Basic Buttercream

Basic Buttercream
this one is from the Living magazine, but I couldn't find it on the website.
(makes about 4 cups)
12 oz (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 pound confectioners' sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Beat butter with a mixer on medium-high speed until pale and creamy, about 2 minutes. Reduce speed to medium.
Add sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating after each addition, about 5 minutes (after every 2 additions, increase speed to high, and beat for 10 seconds, then reduce speed to medium-high).
Add vanilla, and beat until buttercream is smooth. Use immediately, or cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days (bring to room temperature, and beat on low speed until smooth before using).