French Baking with Brenna

Our friend, Brenna, came to visit us this weekend and it was so good to see her! Heather and I were talking about baking before she arrived and because Brenna studied in Paris, speaks French, and went to France with Jaime and me, we thought it would be appropriate to have a French themed baking weekend. So, our baking menu included French Macarons, baguettes, and crepes. On Saturday, Heather and the kids came over and we got started with the macarons. First, we had to make almond flour by food processing almonds and then sifting them. This turned out to be quite the chore, but we finally got enough for our two recipes.

While Heather finished up the flour, Brenna and I started whipping and coloring the egg whites.

Our egg whites whipped to stiff peaks.

Next, Heather folded the egg whites into the dry ingredients.

Then she piped them onto the cookie sheets while Brenna and I worked on the second batch.

Piping the second batch.

Coming out of the oven. We had to cook each pan separately.

Brenna and I started on our second project, baguettes. This recipe was much simpler.

Micah helped knead the dough, look at those precious little hands!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the kitchen, Heather was frosting the macarons. 

Then she had a photo shoot and got some great shots.

Here we are with the finished product. The macarons were tasty, but a lot of work.

The baguettes were also tasty, we had them with our dinner of almond crusted chicken and broccoli.

The next night, the whole family came over for Sunday night dinner and we made crepes for dessert.

Heather mixed up the batter and Brenna and I did the baking.

The results were delicious.

Chocolate Molten Cake

Happy Valentine's Day!

Pie on Sunday (Again)

Last fall we thought it would be fun to have Sunday night be pie night. For some reason or another, that didn't end up happening very many times. We decided to revive the thought for tonight at least. This is a chocolate peanut butter pie from my favorite cookbook I've used called "Pie: 300 Tried-and-True Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pie" by Ken Haedrich. It was a Christmas gift from the Nickells in 2005 and has resulted in many delicious pies that don't disappoint. Tonight's pie was no exception. It had an Oreo crumb crust, a peanut butter/cream cheese filling, and a chocolate mocha topping; rich, creamy, and delicious, plus easy to make!

Wine and Chocolate

An after dinner treat, combined with strawberries and oranges dipped in chocolate.

Out With the Old

I finished my last day of work at Wildflower Cafe in Exeter yesterday and to celebrate I threw away my work shoes. They are a year old and thrashed. I'm getting rid of all my work shirts too, which are in better condition than my shoes, but have gotten stained or bleached from the year and a half that I worked at Wildflower. Moving on, and excited to be!

"I Love You" in So Many Words

I always like making heart sugar cookies, but today was especially fun. Laurel suggested writing "I love you" in different languages and Ian happened to know how to say it in numerous languages, so he wrote them out and I put them on the cookies. We had a great time working on them and thought they turned out great.

From top to bottom, left to right they are: French, Chinese, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, German, English, Spanish, Gaelic, and Japanese.

Saturday

After having to miss the first couple of the boys' basketball games, I was excited to make it to game three on Saturday. It was fun to watch them run around and have so much fun.

 The proud aunties watching the game.

Intense spectating

Cool action shot

And here's a little video of some of the game. Please excuse the background noise, it's kinda loud.

After the game, Dad, Mom, Michelle, and I went to Tahoe Joe's for lunch. I got a wildberry daiquiri, which was tasty, mostly tasted like a wildberry smoothie. Our food was good too.

Weekend Trip

For a long time, I have been trying to plan a trip up to visit some of my London flatmates who now live in Stockton. Our schedules just weren't working until finally this weekend we were all available. Saturday morning I braved the fog and headed north. Since I was going that way, I decided to go a little farther and visit my friend Conor in Davis.

 We had a nice lunch, then walked along a river by the school. It was really good to see him and catch up. It was also a gorgeous day for a walk.

 Then it was back down to Stockton to spend time with Darrin and Charity. This is Darrin with his scary van that we took to get dinner. We decided to go for Italian food because 2 years ago on that day that's what we were eating in London, it seemed fitting. Plus, Darrin had seen an Italian place he wanted to try. It was a cool place and we were there early so there wasn't anyone else there. The food was good, mmm, pasta.

After eating, we stopped at this theater turned church and coffee shop and Darrin got coffee. It was a neat place, good feel and smell.

Charity was volunteering at the Miss San Joaquin beauty pageant that night so she got me a ticket and I got to see my first beauty pageant. It was really interesting.

Of course, it started with the swimsuit portion.

 Then, we moved on to the talent part. This was my favorite because there was so much variety and all the ladies did a good job. There was tap dancing, singing, monologue, jazz dance, piano solos, ballet, flute solo, and more! My first favorite was the Tahitian dance performed by one of Charity's students; she was good. My other favorite was a flute solo by the lady who ended up winning, it was amazing. I think I sat there with my mouth hanging open for most of it.

These girls were not competing, but the theme for the night was South Pacific, so they came out and danced  a number of times and that was also a highlight for me.

 After an intermission, we had the evening wear and on-stage question portions. Then there was a good bye to Miss San Joaquin 2010, some stalling while the scores were tallied, then finally, the results. That was exciting, there was plenty of hugging and freaking out.

The show ran from 7-10:20pm, so by the time it was over, I was ready. Charity and I got a snack on the way back to the house, but pretty quickly after eating it we all went to bed.

Sunday morning, Darrin decided he was going to make Belgian waffles, so he did and it was wonderful. We had bacon, waffles, orange juice, and fresh fruit.

It was a new recipe and a new waffle iron and Darrin wasn't happy with the results. Particularly because the iron wasn't cooking the waffles evenly and they kept getting burned in spots. But, Charity and I didn't mind, it was a delicious breakfast.

After eating, Darrin started watching football, so Charity and I watched a movie in the other room. Then we all went on a short walk before I had to leave. The drive back went smoothly. Everyone was already there when I arrived. We celebrated Isaac's birthday by having fish tacos for dinner and German Chocolate cake for dessert, yum!!

Fudge

I got to use the candy molds Jonah and Michelle gave me for Christmas for the first time today.  Unfortunately, the fudge I was making did not do them justice; I was trying to make half batches, not a good idea with fudge I found. They got over cooked and ended up hard, but the taste is good and they soften up quickly when you eat them. "Melts in your mouth, not in your hand", to look on the bright side. The candy molds were great though, I'm looking forward to trying something else that hopefully will turn out better.

Roasting Marshmallows

Here's a video of us roasting marshmallows in the fireplace last night with the boys!