A Very Long Overdue Easter Post

So... I have this thing where I think up awesome posts/events and take pictures on my swell nikon d40 to show you guys just how awesome everything was... and then 2 days later the idea of pulling out my camera-to-computer cord and like, plugging it in... let alone actually editing the 372480 million pictures seems like the most daunting and strenuous task ever. And so, when I finally do get all those pictures on my computer I find that half of them are random pictures of food or trips to the froyo shop from a month ago which are entirely irrelevant now. ah, well. I do have one collection of photos from my most recent upload extravaganza that can be lumped into a coherent post- easter pics!

So here ya go, a month late:

My parents came to visit me down in Tucson for easter weekend. It was so, so lovely to have them down there. On Friday evening we went to one of my favorite little italian places in tucson- vero amore. afterwards we got gelato at the most amazing gelato place in the universe which stewie and i were introduced to by our friend nicole and her boyfriend sam... I'm pretty sure we are forever in debt to them for it ;)

 mmm... I got rose and saffron and marsala wine and stew got chocolate mint and almond biscotti. soooooo gooood.

the next day we went out to tanque verde falls to have a little picnic and go swimming. It was a fun hike down and up into the canyon, although at first we couldn't really find any deep pools. we had lunch around here:

while we were hiking back through the canyon we decided to go past where you hike up to the road. we came across a group of semi intoxicated college boys and a totally awesome super deep swimming hole! the boys were jumping off a cliff into the water, and their faces when my dad climbed up to the cliff and jumped off were hilarious. they totally wrote him off as an old geezer and he totally showed them up ;)

after a bit the boys left, so i decided to swim a bit. the water was freeeezing but it was a warm day and it felt really nice.

that evening we had dinner at my grandpa's house and then stew and I headed home and then to the grocery store to get some things for brunch the next day. I had convinced my parents to let me take care of the whole easter meal, aside from them bringing some bagels. it was so, so fun.. even though i got like no sleep because i was cooking all night haha.

First and most impressively I made and absolutley beautiful and delicious braided bread stuffed with sweet cheese and fresh lemon curd. holy crap it was so good. and surprisingly easy!

i also made some really good and simple mustard roasted potatoes made with both red and yellow skinned taters.

I put together a little melon ball salad for something fresh...

and i also made a realllly yummy mushroom and spinach baked egg dish but for some reason I don't have a picture of it. stew and I had about 7 eggs to spare after we used them in the different dishes so we bought a little egg coloring kit and colored them (at like 3 in the morning) to use for decorations/place markers. I think they came out really cute!

hmm, what else... I brewed a pot of coffee bean and tea leaf jasmine pearl tea... it's so amazing and also so expensive.... love and thanks to our wonderful friend marby for giving it to us for christmas!!! we've been trying to ration it, it's so good. The beautiful tea pot I got from my dad for christmas and I use it like, every day. me love tea.

For decorations I bought a simple, plastic purple table cloth, some tulips, and some cadbury's mini eggs. You can see the extra colored eggs hiding in the tulips :)

Everything was so beautiful and so delicious and i was exceptionally proud of myself for pulling off such a pretty and homemade easter brunch. I definitely hope to host a ton more brunches in the future :)

my helped me clean up and then left shortly after. stew and i spent the rest of the day doing a whole lot of nothing, although there was quite a bit of playing with the bubbles my parents had brought us in a cute little easter basket full of treats.

and that was our easter weekend! it was so great and relaxing and full of great company and great food. so, um... happy easter? lol.

<3
Em

St Paddy's Countdown Day 2

Today was SUCH an epic day of cooking. Seriously, like 6 hours of it. But you guys are in for some awesome irish fare! I made some delish vegan corned beef and cabbage as well as 4 rounds of irish soda bread. I also made my fave colcannon, which you can find here- I just now added the pics to that post though! On a whim I also decided to make some old fashioned sugar cookies with green 7 minute frosting. In the end, my fam and I had practically a thanksgiving feast in front of us for dinner- and there is tons left for me to take on our st paddy's camping trip tomorrow! yay.

Alright, it's late, so let's dive right in to the good stuff.

First, Irish soda bread!
My dad used to make this from time to time, and my grandma made it when he was a kid (and sometimes for me as well!). They make it with caraway seeds, so I wanted to be sure to do the same. I also found a yummy recipe for soda bread made with browned butter, rosemary, and black pepper, though- so I decided to double the batch and do half with rosemary and half with caraway seeds. They both turned out fantastic! I did figure out a bit too late though that the recipe already made two rounds of bread- so i ended up with four. No big deal though ;)

Start by preheating the oven to 375 and mixing together 3.5 cups of flour, 1 tbsp sugar, 1/2 cup oats, 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 3/4 tsp black pepper, and 1 tbsp caraway seeds or fresh, chopped rosemary. as you can see from the pic I didn't add caraway seeds or rosemary at this point, but rather waited until the dough was formed so I could easily halve it.

Next, melt 1/4 cup of butter in a small saucepan and allow it to brown quite a bit. Once melted, pour into the dry ingredients along with 1.75 cups buttermilk (I used milk and a few tbsp vinegar set out at room temp for a few minutes)

Mix well and then turn the dough out onto a floured surface. Divide in half.

At the point I added 1 tbsp caraway seeds to one half and 1 tbsp rosemary another half. I then divided those halves in half.

Form into round loaves and score the top.

Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 45 minutes or until a knife stuck all the way through the middle comes out clean.

yummy! serve hot with butter- whipped with honey or herbs if you like!

Now for the vegan corned beef and cabbage. This is so simple, so delicious, and quite healthy!

Begin by cutting two medium yellow onions into wedges. Sautee in a large pot with 1 tbsp of olive oil for about ten mins, or until just beginning to turn brown.

Then chop up 4 carrots into two inch, quartered pieces. I used about 50 baby carrots instead because walmart didn't have any regular carrots. can you believe that? ridiculous. Also thickly slice two stalks of celery and finely slice half a head of cabbage.

When the onions are slightly brown, add the other veggies to the pot along with four cups of vegetable broth, 1 tsp thyme, 1/2 tsp rubbed sage, 1 tsp mustard seeds (or dry mustard), 1 tsp vegan horseradish, 1 tbsp red wine vinegar, 1 tsp salt, and 1 tsp black pepper.

Stir to combine and then cover the pot and allow the contents to cook for 15 minutes. Then add one pkg (about 8-9 oz) of beef substitute- I typically use morningstar steak strips, but there are many other yummy brands as well. You can also use seitan. Cover and cook for another 15 minutes or until carrots are tender. Once the 15 minutes are up, use a slotted spoon to remove the veggies and meat from the remaining juices in the pot.

In a small bowl, combine 1 tbsp red wine, 1/4 cup water, and 2 tbsp flour. slowly add this mixture to the remaining juices and  stir well. Cook until the gravy reaches desired consistency, and then pour over the veggies and meat. Serve and enjoy!

yummmm. admittedly not the prettiest dish I've ever seen, but it is very tasty. definitely something every vegetarian should have on their st patrick's day menu!

I also made some cookies, which weren't too exciting, but photographed well.

yikes, total sugar bombs! haha. don't forget to check out last year's colcannon post to see the pretty new pictures that go along with the recipe!

hooray! tomorrow I am driving a few miles out of town with some friends to spend the day out in nature camping and having a blast- but i'll try to get that last blog post up anyhow!

Love,
Em

St Paddy's Countdown Day 3

Just pretend this was posted yesterday, ok? ;)

St Patrick's Day drinks pretty much revolve around three things: beer, whiskey, and irish cream. You could combine all three in an epic curdle-y gross irish car bomb, or you could just stick to one poison... and there's also always the option of going through the mcdonald's drivethrough for a shamrock shake- but the idea of going to mcdonald's is almost as gross as the idea of an irish car bomb.

I wanted to do something different. I'm sure people have made these before, but a quick search on google didn't bring up any results. The drink is called a Green Irish- a twist on the White Russian.

The components are pretty much the same- one shot hard alcohol (vodka in a w.r.), 2 shots liqueur (coffee liqueur in a w.r.) and half and half to fill the glass. My version swapped irish whiskey (jameson is a good option) for the vodka and bailey's irish cream for the kahlua coffee liqueur. The half and half stays the same, but I added a few drops of green food coloring to give the drink a fresh, irish tint.

Tastes just how you would expect- like a white russian with an irish twist! Very yummy and decadent. whip up a few for your st paddy's day party :)

1 oz irish whiskey
2 oz irish cream such as Bailey's
half and half
green food coloring (opt)

mix whiskey and irish cream in a glass. Fill with chilled half and half. add a few drops of food coloring and stir well. serve!

Later today I will be back with some awesome irish eats. So excited! I'm going to start cooking right now :)

irish day approaches!

Oh my gosh you guys, can you believe that there are only 7 days until St Patrick's day and I have not gushed about it yet? If you have been reading this blog for a while you'll know that I am obsessed with all things holiday. I love celebrating, dressing up, decorating, making themed food and drink, watching holiday movies, making holiday playlists, I love holidays! And that love of holidays is written all over this blog in the form of coutdowns.

I've made a St. Patrick's Day countdown before, although it got kind of broken up because it was the first month of this blog and I flew from Portland to Arizona on st patricks day- so I didn't really have the time or motivation to write out my post on time. Also, I left my camera cord in prescott so when I got back to portland I couldn't put up any st paddy's day pictures. And lastly, that countdown was all about food, something I am totally not against whatsoever, but I think I could expand on it a bit :)

And so, in honor of St Patrick's Day 2011, I am going to be making yet another countdown. hooray!! I love this holiday so, so much. I'm a hefty percentage of Irish, and I love any excuse to have a big ol' celebration. There have been some really great years in the past and I'm sure this one will outdo them all!

The countdown will be 5 days long and will start in 3 days (the 13th) and end on March 17th. Here's what you can expect:

Day 1:Tunes
Day 2:Flicks
Day 3:Potations
Day 4: Irish Eats
Day 5: Throwing a St Paddy's Day Celebration

yay :) exciting. I've got some mighty fine ideas a-brewin', so get ready! Happy Irish week everyone!

<3
Em

Happy Mardi Gras!

Bonjour mon chers! Aujourd'hui est Mardi Gras, ou "Fat Tuesday". C'est une celébration très magnifique! Mon cheveux est dans un chignon français pour l'occasion.

Just kidding. If you can't read my cryptic french or are too lazy to go to google translate, the above says
"Hello my dears! Today is Mardi Gras, or "Fat Tuesday". It's a very magnificent holiday! My hair is in a french bun for the occasion".

Mardi Gras is such an awesome holiday! Doesn't it just sound like the most fun idea? Huge street parties with plastic beads and cakes with sugar sprinkles and french creole food and all sorts of other fun stuff. The problem is that it's really hard to capture all that fun the farther away you are from New Orleans... which for me is pretty far. I've tried to throw a couple mardi gras parties in my day, although usually they coincide with someone's birthday or the superbowl so it becomes a joint party. This year I don't have time to go all out with a party, but I decided to do something fun and festive anyways. How do jello shots minus the alcohol because it's a tuesday sound?

Of course, if you want you can add in the alcohol. But if you leave it out it can be a cute little kid-friendly dessert! The idea with these was to make them look like confetti/jewels- because there's a whole lot of both at Mardi Gras! They are also in the colors of green, purple, and gold (the traditional colors of mardi gras). If I had had time I would have bought clear unflavored gelatin and played around with mardi-gras flavors, maybe concocting some sort of jello shot cocktail taste-a-like. However, I did not have time. I ran to the store after dropping stew off at school because I needed floss, and then I noticed the jello aisle. Turns out fry's does not carry plain gelatin. who knew? so anyways, grape, lime, and lemon it is.

At the end, you can go simple and sophisticated with squares, or go all out using cookie cutters or a knife to make creative shapes. You can also decorate them with colored sugar to make them sparkle!

Here's how ya do it:

These are incredibly simple. Hello, it's jello. A four year old can make this stuff.
What you need:
1 pack yellow jello
1 pack green jello
1 pack purple jello
3 cups boiling water
1/2 cup milk/soymilk
colored sugar sprinkles for decorating
2.5 cups cold water OR
1/2 cup water
2 cups vodka

you will also need:
a medium mixing bowl
two medium sized square containers. Just the right size so that when you pour one prepared package of jello into it the liquid comes up to one inch.

1. Begin by making your green and purple jellos. These will need to set completely before you can make your gold jello. To make, bring two cups of water to a boil. In separate mixing bowls or one at a time, measure one cup of boiling water and combine with the contents of each jello package. Stir for about a minute or until dissolved.

2.  Add one cup of cool water to each batch and stir. Pour into separate square containers, cover, and move to the fridge for four hours or until firm.

If you are making alcoholic shots: Pour 1/4 cup of water into each batch of jello. stir and wait about 5 minutes to let the mixture cool a bit. Then add 3/4 cup vodka to each batch and stir. Pour each batch into separate square containers. Cover and move to the fridge for four hours or until firm. 

3. Once firm, remove the jello from the fridge and cut into neat one inch squares.

4. Begin making the gold jello. Boil one cup of water and add it to the contents of your third jello package. Once again, stir until dissolved.

5. Add 1/2 cup of milk and 1/2 cup cool water to the jello. stir, and let cool for about ten minutes.

If you are making alcoholic shots: replace the 1/2 cup cool water for 1/2 cup vodka.

6. When the jello is slightly warmer than luke warm, pour it into a slightly larger square dish. Add the squares of green and purple jello and stir so that there is some variety is position. Cover and chill for an additional 3-4 hours.

7. Cut the jello into two inch cubes and garnish with colored sugar sprinkles. Serve and enjoy!

Hope you guys have a fun mardi gras. Celebrate in some way! It's the little things like these holidays and opportunities to celebrate that make life so fun :)

(I might put up pics later, but my jello isn't totally set yet and I don't want it to be all deflated and goopy in the pics!)

Our Cheap and Lovely VDay

I thought I'd post about the Vday stew and I shared because we managed to have an amazing time without spending a huge amount of money- something that I think everyone probably would like to do! We're pretty much over big extravagant gifts and expensive dinners at exclusive restaurants... our valentines day was simple, fun, and easy on both our wallets.

Our big event was going to the zoo... so much fun! 7 bucks a person, and stew paid. I took a bunch of pics on my new phone since I tragically left my camera at a friend's house in phoenix last weekend... but I think they're still pretty cool ^^

The tucson zoo is really awesome- it's divided into an Africa section, an Asia section, and a South America section. We saw tigers, lions, giraffes, elephants, monkeys, bears (polar and otherwise), lots of birds (including flamingos!), the largest known gerbil which looked like a HUGE ginnea pig (pic below but it's kind of hard to see), and plenty of other things. It was great!

this is the huge gerbil!!

monkey chewing on a stick! so cute

After the zoo, we went to a cute little greek place right down the street that we've talked about trying a zillion times but had never actually been to. We got a chicken gyro and a falafel wrap which was delicious- and the total came to about 13 bucks after tip. I paid, which put us at pretty much even.

I had to go to class, but that night I came home and we decided to go out to dinner. I wanted italian so i looked up some places on yelp and found a little hole-in-the-wall brick oven pizza place that sounded really good. It was absolutely delicious! Stew and I shared an antipasto appetizer (I was seriously full after just this!) and then a small personal pizza that had prosciutto, olives, mushrooms, and mozzarella- oh yeah, and they make their own fresh mozzarella. yum!!

We ended up taking leftovers home for lunch the next day. We split the check and it was about 12$ each- which puts us both at about 25 bucks so far :)

We then went to the fry's down the street from our house and bought a marie callenders pie (3 $ each), and we decided to pick out one present for each other, with the agreement that it would be less than 5$. I picked out a jar of nutella for stewie (can you say best present ever?) and he bought me a beautiful white rose. So, that puts us each at an additional 8$- equaling about 32$ each for a whole day jam-packed with delicious food and wonderful fun! I imagine some people spent 32$ each on just dinner- maybe even more!

It was a really wonderful day, and I'm glad we didn't try to over do it or buy really ridiculous things for each other. I had a great time and i can't wait for our next cheap and simple vday!

Hope yours was a blast as well :)

Love,
Em

Movie Monday: Valentine Edition

umm... please forgive me for not posting this on monday. i know it's totally not fair for me to post my movie post on a wednesday and try to pass it off as a movie monday... but hey, that's what I'm gonna do. :)

Seriously though, I was GOING to post this on monday. I really was! But sometimes it seems like between going to class, doing homework, cooking, cleaning, and watching multiple episodes at a time of Psych with stewie I just don't have any free time. It's quite frustrating. hopefully the load will start to get a little lighter as time goes on and i get used to it all!

Anyways, here is your belated valentines movie monday. I know love day has come and gone, but you can watch sweet romantic chick-flicky movies any day of the year in my opinion. Also note, this is probably the only movie monday I will post that features a straight up "chick-flick", so get 'em while you can ;)

For this very special Valentine's Edition of Movie Mondays, I'm going to post my top 7 (because 10 was too many and 5 wasn't enough) favorite romantic movies (in no particular order). You've probably heard of a few or all of them, but they're still great!

1. P.S. I Love You
Beautiful story about a husband trying to help his wife move on after he has died via letters and other such things. Very touching and amazing acting :)


2. The Time Traveler's Wife
You knew I was going to sneak this one in, didn't you? I may be a teensy bit obsessed with this movie and the novel that inspired it. I have valid reasons though: I love time-travel stories, I love love stories, and I love Rachel McAdams. To keep it brief, this is a love story about a man who involuntarily travels through time and the love of his life, who has known him all her life but is stuck in the present.


3. Moulin Rouge
There was a time in highschool- somewhere in freshman or sophomore year- when I watched this movie every single night. And man, did I weep. I really love musicals, and back then I was OBSESSED with them. Also I thought Ewan McGreggor was pretty darn cute and French Bohemia? break me off a piece of that time period! haha. Anyways, this movie is definitely comical at times, but it's also really sweet and sad and exciting, what with all the modern music compilations and can-can dancers and giant elephant bedrooms.


4. Center Stage
I first saw this movie when I was 11, and it was the cool thing to like. Yknow, when we all thought we might actually be professional ballerinas someday. Anyways, this movie has an AWESOME soundtrack, some spectacular dance scenes, and a really fun romance-triangle story. It's definitely light fare, but I like it all the same. Very cute and sweet.


5. The Holiday
I think I talked about this one during my christmas movie monday edition, but it's still a great love story any time of the year. In fact, it's got two love stories at once :) Iris and Amanda trade houses for the holidays (a cottage in Surrey, England, and a mansion in Beverly Hills) in an effort to get over their lost loves, but end up finding a lot more than the peace and solitude they were hoping for. Great script and really great stars in this film :)


6. Chocolat
A perfect vday movie :) It takes place in a teensy little French town, where a woman and her child settle down to open up a chocolate shop. The conservative religious people of the town don't initially take kindly to this free-spirited woman and her shop full of temptations, but as they begin to warm up to her the whole town seems to transform. Johnny Depp also shows up as a "river rat" (as imdb puts it) and of course a little love story begins to develop. Great romance story, but seriously the various scenes of chocolate making and delicious treats are enough to make me watch this movie!


7. Music and Lyrics
I saw this movie with my best friend in sophomore year, and we loved it! We came home and downloaded all the songs haha. It's such a cute movie. I think Hugh Grant is awesome in all his films, and this one doesn't disappoint. Same goes for Drew Barrymore. Basically Hugh Grant is a fallen pop star who is trying to reinvigorate his career by recording a duet with the current charts-topping pop star. He's got writer's block though, and can't figure out how to write something that will be a hit. His plant-waterer (bad english...) overhears his struggles and gives him some input.... and everything kind of falls into place from there as the two work together to write the perfect song :) Cute, funny, and sweet.



Happy belated valentines day guys! Hope you had a great one!!

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!

V-day used to seem like a big deal to me back in highschool. I would make really sweet, personalized gifts for whoever I was dating at the time, we would go out to a perfect dinner, he would get me flowers and candy and all sorts of other cliche gifts- at least that's how I thought it should be. Now though, valentines seems a little silly. Why only celebrate your love one day out of the year? Stewie and I are always doing nice things for each other on a daily basis, so valentines doesn't seem like it should be that different.

Anyways, I still love any chance to celebrate a holiday so I'm decked out in a pink dress and grey and pink thigh high socks^^

I made stew breakfast this morning (egg-in-a-hole. have you had it? it's delicious. It's also called bird's nests I think), and in about 15 minutes we're going to go to the zoo. And that's our big valentines date! Cute, isn't it? Neither of us have a ton of money, especially since xmas was just 2 months ago- but the zoo is only 7$ a person, and seriously- so much fun.

Tonight we might go to dinner but we'll probably just split the cost :) simple, easy, fun, sweet valentines day. I'm excited! What are your guys' plans for today?

Anyways, I'll be back with a movie monday later today- probably a list of a few of my favorite lovey-dovey movies- but for now I just wanted to wish you a wonderful February 14th. Hope it's lovely!

Love,
Em

12th Day of Christmas

During the holidays it's always important to have some snacks set out for people to munch on. Here are a couple sweet little things I made for my parents and sister as gifts but could also just be set out to tide people over while they wait for a big holiday feast :)

The first is chocolate espresso bean bark. My family is a big fan of chocolate covered espresso beans, but it's tough to get individual coated beans when you are making them at home. Bark, on the other hand, is super simple, and the taste is the same.

Start by greasing a large (but small enough to fit in your freezer) cookie sheet with vegetable or canola oil. Then spread about 1.5 cups of espresso or coffee beans in a single layer on the cookie sheet.

Melt a bag of dark chocolate chips with 1.5 tbsp canola or vegetable oil in the microwave. Use nice chocolate chips for this, like ghiradelli.

Let the melted chocolate cool a bit so that you can touch it without burning yourself but it is still very liquidy. Then drizzle it over the espresso beans, trying to cover as much as you can.

Use your hands to smear the chocolate around so the all the beans are coated and you have a large rectangle of chocolatey-coffee bean goodness. Use a spatula to flatten the beans out into pretty much a single layer again.

Stick the cookie sheet into the freezer for about 30 minutes to harden the chocolate. When it is completely hardened, remove from the freezer and pry up the bark with a knife or your fingers. I found it came up very easily.

Use your hands to break the bark up into small pieces. Bag it for a gift or put it in a bowl and set it out for people to snack on.

The second little treat is something called Sparkling Cranberries. Basically I had a bunch of cranberries leftover from making the cran-apple spiced vodka and I didn't want to waste them so I looked up simple cranberry recipes and this was my favorite. It's very simple and very delicious.

Start by making a simple syrup out of 2 cups water and 2 cups sugar. Boil them together on the stove until the sugar is fully dissolved. Let cool to about room temperature.

Put 2 cups cranberries in a large tupperware. Pour the simple syrup over the cranberries, cover, and store in the fridge overnight.

The next day, drain the cranberries and toss with some granulated sugar. Let the cranberries air dry for several hours.

When the cranberries are mostly dry, toss again with granulated sugar. Repeat the tossing until the cranberries are coated.

That's all there is to it! The cranberries are slightly tart but also sweet- so yummy!

Thanks for reading my 12 Days of Christmas posts! They were fun to write. I'll be back in the next day or two with my regular posts :)

Happy holidays!
<3