Holy Week Cookies

It has been a busy few weeks!  First Medium Well came home for spring break, and we celebrated Mom and my birthdays, and then Small One had her spring break, and then it was Palm Sunday and Holy Week and Easter!  Now, for normal people, Holy Week wouldn't entail much other than going to church and fasting a bit, but for people in choirs is entails a lot of singing and piano playing.  A LOT of singing!  Let's see, Mom and Dad were doing Palm Sunday mass on Saturday night so Mom played piano constantly and practiced with Dad who was doing a solo/meditation piece along with all the regular songs.  Then they had a bass practice at the house for all the basses in the choir (and some of their alto wives who tagged along) to practice their parts for Holy Week and Easter.  Then there was the practicing and going to mass to sing the songs.  So there has been a lot of music generated in the house these past two weeks.  Which is just fine I guess.  I do miss singing in a choir.  I'm sitting there listening to all this music (btw Good Friday music is my favorite music of all time) and I miss college when I belonged to a choir and would go to all the Monday night practices for Holy week starting pretty much a month before Easter along with the regular week practices (then there was that one year where we had Holy Week practice, regular practice, AND trip choir practice!).  I haven't found a choir I want to join yet here.  All the choirs I've heard sing boring, unenlightened songs and they're full of old people.  Siiiiiiigh.  Oh well.  I did find myself pulling out the music I used to sing and belting out the soprano parts this week while plunking out the notes on the piano and trying to figure out the flats (seriously there must be a rule where all Holy Week songs are in keys will a million flats!).
So this brings me to the point of my post!  Since I miss singing with my college choir so much, and since I can't justify buying a plane ticket to fly to Manhattan for one Friday and then fly home in time for Easter, I decided to send cookies to the choir instead! 
I had to plan the cookies out and figure out what I wanted to make and get the cookie cutters ordered from Amazon (which worked out nicely since I ordered them at the same time as Mom's birthday presents.  What didn't work out so nicely was that packages would come in the mail and I would open them thinking they were cookie cutters and they were actually presents for me!  I closed the box up and told Medium Well to tell mom she opened it . . . ).  I mean what type of cookies say "Holy Week"?  It took some brainstorming but I finally came up with what I thought were some good ideas!

First thing I thought of was a cross, but I knew that there was ABSOLUTELY NO WAY I would be able to draw a recognizable Jesus using frosting.  I wouldn't even be able to draw a decent Jesus unless it involved three erasers and many, many sheets of paper.  So I went with a less literal translation but I thought it was still pretty meaningful.  I liked the idea of turning the nail holes into roses because what the nail holes signified was so beautiful.

I'd never piped roses before and after running to Michaels for new frosting tips and trying for an hour to figure out how to pipe roses small enough to fit on the cookies, I wound up just using a star tip and making a swirl and adding a dash of green for a leaf (to make people go "Oh!  It's a flower not just a red swirl!).  I think they looked enough like roses to convey the point though :)

Now, since I was sending these cookies to my old choir I HAD to include a music note cookie (we already had a music note cookie cutter, go figure).  I didn't really want to send just a cookie with black frosting.  Woo Hoo Beth is so talented she can ice a cookie!  Lol so I added a red flower to match the cross cookies.

Now I was excited because I got to try a new technique for these cookies!  I think it's called brushed embroidery?  Anyway, it's where you draw a line of frosting, then take a small brush dipped in water and blotted on a paper towel and brush the frosting down.  It's kinda hard to explain but I'll post pictures of the process so it will make it clearer!


  

But I liked how they turned out.

The final cookie I did was a lily.  When you think Easter you think white lilies but it wasn't Easter just yet so I went with somber colors and still made a lily.

This is a starfish cookie cutter btw.  In case you ever have to make a lily cookie you can use a star fish cookie cutter and it works just as well!

Oh and all this dark icing to match the somber mood of Holy Week?  Yeah it can color your teeth!  I suggest chewing with your molars and brushing your teeth!  (no worries it won't stain your teeth, it will just turn them pretty colors and cause the people around you to amuse themselves at your expense).  I included gum and Wisps in the box to clean off peoples' teeth in case they were worried.

Here are all the cookies together!  Not a bad group of cookies if I do say so myself :)
So I mailed the cookies last Monday and the post office promised me that they would get there on Wednesday so I didn't have to pay for next day shipping.  Well it turns out they didn't get there till FRIDAY when of course everyone was fasting and couldn't eat them.  So I hope they ended up tasting ok and I hope none of them got broken.  It's stressful sending cookies! 
Word of advice, the Manhattan post office is pathetic and always send cookies way in advance.  Sigh.  But in case they were a total bust this is what they were supposed to look like!
   

Olive Oil Trials and Travails

Ahhhhh, every time I look at this olive oil topper, I smile :)  First of all it's gorgeous.  Second of all, I got it in Italy.  Specifically in Assisi.  And I LOVED Assisi.  Out of all the towns I visited in Italy Assisi spoke to me.  It was a beautiful, historic, peaceful city and just a really special place.  I recommend going there for anyone who travels to Italy.  So I guess I'm a bit biased about this olive oil topper, but it elicits such good memories! (If I went back I could literally show you the exact place I purchased the topper).

The problem is that I only purchased the topper. They didn't sell empty olive oil bottle to go with the toppers.  So once I got back to the US I had to find a bottle to fit the topper.  But see that cork down at the bottom?  Yeah apparently it doesn't fit every bottle!

And apparently they don't sell that many plain olive oil bottles either.  Actually they don't really sell ANY olive oil bottles, lain or not.  This is one of the bottles we tried (we tried a few others but mom knocked those off the counter and they broke . . . ).  Isn't it gorgeous!?  I'll answer that for you.  No, it's NOT gorgeous.  It's pretty hideous actually.  But at least it worked.


 

This is actually the topper that came with the bottle.  I think my first thought when I saw this topper was "Seriously?!  What were they THINKING?! Whose kitchen does that even MATCH?!" Can you even guess what that is?

It's a peach.  A weird, cumbersome peach.  Because every time I see a peach I immediately think olive oil . . . not.

These were some of the other oil toppers from the broken bottles.  They weren't the same size as the cork one that's for sure.

Medium Well had the idea to use a balsamic vinegar bottle and that worked for a while, but the topper kept falling out.  Then I had the idea, a wine bottle!  Wine bottles use corks so the cork should fit.  Wine bottles are dark so they don't let as much sunlight in (you're supposed to keep your olive oil in a dark container but I don't think that matters for me since the quality of my olive oil isn't that spectacular . . . I mean come on I get it from the grocery store!).  And wine bottles are big and hold a lot of olive oil so I don't have to refill the bottle that often.  It pretty much was a match made in heaven and has worked perfectly :)
So if you ever find yourself with an olive oil topper from Italy and no bottle to go with it, take one for the team and drink a bottle of wine, wash the bottle out (preferably after the effects of consuming the bottle of wine have worn off), let it dry, and then fill it with olive oil, add the topper, and voila!  Perfection!

Risotto Ridiculousness

I love risotto!  It's yummy and you can honestly put ANYTHING in it.  Mushrooms, asparagus, carrots, peas, cauliflower, broccoli, ham, chicken, mozzarella, basil, rosemary, etc etc etc
I'll show you the base that I make and the vegetables that I added, but honestly you can change up what you add to it.

I start by prepping the vegetables that I'm going to add so they can cook while I'm making the risotto.  Here I'm doing a risotto primavera.  So I'm roasting carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower.

For every risotto I make I always add onions.  I make them in the same pan that I'm going to use to make the risotto so I only make one dish dirty AND all the flavor from the onions cooking stays in the pan.

Speaking of pans.  This is our new risotto pan!  I used to make it in a big pot but then I saw this Essential Pan by All Clad from Williams Sonoma.

It's a massive pan but it's a great size for cooking one pot meals.  More surface area too.

And it's deep so nothing sloshes over the sides.  Btw, did you know that All Clad pots and pans are all made in the USA?  I'm always looking for products made in the USA and these pots are some of my favorites.  But they're also expensive so I've been getting my parents one or two for each Christmas, birthday, or mother's/father's day for a year or so.

 Ok, back to cooking.  Saute the onions until soft in olive oil.

Then add a package of mushrooms once the onions are semi soft (mushrooms take less time to cook than onions do).

While you're waiting for the mushrooms and onions to cook, put 5-6 cups of chicken broth on a pot on the stove and start heating it.

Aw, the mushrooms and onions are now soft.   Take them out of the pan and put them in a bowl over to the side.

Now, in the same pan, melt two tbs of butter.

This is arborio rice.  This is a short grain, starchy rice and it's pretty much the only rice you can use for risotto.  It's sold at pretty much every grocery store though so no worries.

Add 1-1/2 cups of arborio rice to the melted butter and stir till all the rice is coated in butter.

Then add 3/4 cup of white wine.  Mix that in (it will absorb pretty fast).  Then add one cup of the hot chicken stock.  This will take longer to mix in.  

Stir until you can run your spoon/spatula through the risotto and it holds a line for a second (one mississippi) pictured above.  Then add another cup of the warm chicken broth and stir until you can run your spatula through and it holds a line, then add ANOTHER cup of warm chicken broth etc.  Keep adding the chicken broth and stirring until all 5 or 6 cups of broth are gone.  I like my risotto creamy not al dente so I add 6 cups of broth.  If you like al dente things you only need to add 5 cups of broth.

 Ah, look at the mess I have to clean up.  Joy.  Not.

By now the roasted vegetables are probably done (roasted on 450 for about 20-25 minutes) so take them out.  Here they are next to the bowl of mushrooms and onions from earlier.

Once all the chicken broth in incorporated you can add another 3/4 cup of white wine.  This is just to taste, so if you don't like wine you can leave it out.  But I like wine.  Yummy!

This is what it will look like when all the liquid has been added.  It looks a lot bigger than it did to begin with!

Here's a really blurry picture of the rice granules.  The one on the left is the uncooked rice and the on the right is the cooked rice.  It's plumped up and it's let off all it's starch.


 

Now you can leave the rice the way it is or you can add cheese to it.  I like to add a cup of Parmesan cheese and 4oz of goat cheese.  The parmesan cheese just melts right in and adds a little saltiness so I'd suggest adding that no matter what.  The goat cheese is more a personal taste preference.  It makes it creamier but it also makes it tangier.  It pairs nicely with the white wine and I love goat cheese (P.S. warm goat cheese on a salad is delicious!) so I add it.


  

Once all the cheese is mixed in, add the roasted vegetables and the onions and mushrooms.

 Look at that yummy scrumptiousness!

Yummy, yummy, yummy!  Enjoy!

Baking Obsession

I'm going on a baking spree.  I don't know why, I think it's because it's Lent and I'm not allowed to eat sweets so I'm overcompensating by making lots of sweets for other people.  Or maybe it's because I won this little guy the other day for the office bake-off. 

Or maybe I'm just in a rough spot right now and need to bake.  Baking is my stress reliever, I feel so happy and calm and centered when I'm in the kitchen baking.  Now I'd feel even calmer and more centered if I was the ONLY one in the kitchen and could just zone out, but that doesn't happen normally. 

Or maybe it's because I saw this book at Christmas for Small One since she brings in cupcakes for her friends birthdays (and when you see that, don't think that she's amazing.  I normally make everything she sends in and all her friends bring in cupcakes for the birthday person.  I feel really bad when she comes home with all these droopy, sloppy boxed cake and frosting cupcakes on her birthday because I know people spent time and money on them, but seriously I'm NOT wasting calories on some unworthy baked good just because I feel bad!) but I didn't end up getting it and saw it in the library the other day and got really inspired to make cupcakes. 
 

Or maybe it's because the cupcakes that I made from the book turned out deliciously but the frosting was rock hard and weird. 

I took that as a challenge.  I WILL find a new recipe for cupcakes and frosting and it WILL be delicious and it WILL look professional!  Or maybe not.  I'm gonna give cupcakes one more chance then just stick to cookies. For some reason I can do cookies.  I don't know why but I've figured out how to bake cookies and somehow my frosting just clicks.  One would think that making a frosting swirl on top of a cupcake would be a lot easier than piping a santa face on a cookie but for me it isn't.  

Those were some of my favorite cookies to date :)

But after some extensive cupcake research on the internet I ran across an interesting recipe.  I'll admit, I like a denser cupcake.  Something more like a cake.  Not those light, airy, insubstantial (yet calorie and chemical packed) out of the box cupcakes.  And before you get all mad at me for saying that boxed cake mix has chemicals in it (I bet you can't pronounce all the ingredients either!) I have to confess that in college I ate boxed cake mix.  Plain.  Normally in the middle of the night.  With multiple hours left to go on projects.  And it was DELICIOUS.  But it's bad for me sooooo yeah. 

Anyway, this cupcake recipe that I looked up promised to be a bit denser.  It was showcased on the Martha Stewart show called Billy's Vanilla Vanilla cupcakes.  The interesting thing about these cupcakes was that instead of creaming the butter and sugar together and then adding the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients, you instead mix all the dry ingredients plus the sugar together and THEN you cut in the butter like you were making biscuits.  But you're not making biscuits so then you add the wet ingredients and it turns into cake batter and voila!  A cupcake! 

They were pretty tasty right out of the oven.  They were a little dry today when I could finally have sweets and try them out so I don't know if the recipe's a keeper or not, but I'll have to make them again to see.  The recipe made a lot of cupcakes though.  As in 41 cupcakes!  So I frosted half of them and saved the rest to experiment with making cake balls.  We'll see how those turn out when I can find lollipop sticks. 

So yes, those were my baking travails of this past week.  Now it's on to more cookie baking and planning for Fake Patty's Day!

Howdy Texas

So I took a work trip to Dallas a few weekends ago.  I had a great time and had to remind myself that I was there for work ;)  Here are a few pictures from my trip there.

This was the car that was waiting for us at the airport!  Ummmmm  let's just say I was a wee bit embarrassed!  Who rides in a stretch SUV limo really?!  Town cars are where it's at people ;)

The inside was just as cheesy!  Look at that super retro tv and the blue light on the drink dispensers!  It was amusing but I must say it was so nice to have the travel all taken care of and limos were a great way to transport lots of people and not have to crawl into the very back of large vans like everyone else we saw at the conference.

Here I am looking out of the window in my room the night I got in.  It was a cool shot :)  And I was on the 20th floor!  Hi Dallas!

This picture set the tone for my entire trip.  I like to drink A LOT of water while I'm traveling.  It's because I get dehydrated fast and when I get dehydrated my ankles swell.  This all started when I flew to Italy a few years ago.  I got to my hotel room and my ankles were massive!  I spent the next hour lying on the ground with my feet against the wall.  If only I had known that I was just dehydrated!  I don't know what it is, but I think it's a combination of the forced air and pressurized cabin along with the fact that the airplane seats are a little too high so that cuts off some circulation.  Either way, I drink water, lots of water, when I travel.  It actually became the running joke of the trip!  I would horde all the free water bottles they gave out at the events we went to.  I always had a water bottle in my purse.  Those limos I was teasing about at the beginning?  Yeah they all have water in them!  I took two mini water bottles each ride we took :)  And no, in case you were wondering, I didn't have to run to the bathroom every two minutes either (which tells you how much I needed the water in the first place!).

Here is one side of my room, and the window seat where I took the window picture.

Here is me on my bed looking at the other side of the room.  So, funny thing about this picture, I sent it to Sarah and she said "wow that's a big mirror in your room!" And if you look at it, it does look like a giant mirror!  But that's just a line in the ceiling creating an optical illusion.  See the chair and the lamp?  They're not reflections, they are actually on the other side of the line and the desk with the mirror and the chair are on the other side.  Really weird :)

My favorite part of the entire vacation?  The hotel bathroom! 

More specifically, THE SHOWER!  I probably spent HOURS in the shower.  I think I took twice as many showers as I needed to just so I could use the shower multiple times.  It was glorious and gorgeous, and there's something sexy about taking a shower in a see-through enclosure ;)  ANYWAY, I loved the shower.  Once I spent half an hour rinsing my hair just looking at the construction and envisioning how I could install one in my parents' bathroom (I don't own my own place so I can't build one for myself).  It actually looks pretty easy . . .

The first night we went to a fancy french restaurant and then one of the guys and I were going to a college reunion party so this is what I chose to wear!  The dress is from White House Black Market and it lacy, and the t-strap peep-toe heels are BCBG.  I thought I looked like I belonged at the expensive restaurant.  Fake it till you make it right!?

Sunday morning I went to church with one of my friends who lives in Dallas, then we met up with some of our other friends (also in town) and went out to eat a delicious lunch.  I then had to get back to the hotel to get ready for the rodeo that night.  The rodeo was held for all the mechanical engineers coming to a product display.  This was one of the bull riders.

This was one of the bucking broncos.  Those were cool events.  Actually all the skills events were fun to watch, the rest of the rodeo was AWFUL!  No really it was awful.  Have you ever been to a rodeo?  Maybe it was different than this one which could have been just a spectacle for show, but between the clown who was supposed to provide comic relief who instead just made very inappropriate jokes and the trick riders wearing camo and the announcer yelling AMERICA every two minutes and the obstacle course they had people from the audience participate in, it was just a ridiculous waste of time.  Oh well, it was free and now I can say I've been to a rodeo.

The next morning I got up and went for a run with the other woman I work with who came on the trip.  Then we grabbed breakfast before we headed to the AHR Expo which was why we were actually on the trip!  But the best thing about breakfast was that I got tea!!!  I drink hot tea every morning and iced tea throughout the rest of the day, so to have gone two whole days without any type of tea was all sorts of torture!

That night we went to two company sponsored parties and this is what I wore.  The skirt actually has golden threads running through it making it sparkle.  Btw, both the top and the skirt I bought that day on sale from Banana Republic!  Did I mention that the hotel we stayed at was attached to the Galleria? (that's a big mall in dallas)  I remember going to the Galleria when we visited my aunt in Dallas years and years ago and now I'm staying at hotels there!  How times change ;)

These parties are pretty elaborate ones for the companies to show off, but they're nice to attend :)  This was the first party of the night on the 69th floor, the top floor!  This is a picture out the window from where the party was.  It was super high!  It was also super windy that night.  It was a bit disconcerting to see the windows shaking every time a gust hit the building . . . I stayed far away from the windows after taking this picture!


 

This is the building in the daytime.  So I was on the top floor of that, a little bit crazy to think about.

Here was the second party we went to.  It was held at the opera house in Dallas and it was a gorgeous space!

Did I mention they had the best chocolate desserts!?  I had five mini desserts :)  And wine, with a light-up ice cube!  It was fun.

These were the stairs up to the second floor.  I felt like such a celebrity walking up and down those stairs.  I think I mentioned to multiple people that I could get used to a life where I got dressed up and went to the opera ;)

The next day we went back to the expo before getting on the plane.  We had to check out of the hotel that morning before we went to the expo, but I managed to take a picture of my recycling bin before I left.  It was completely full of water bottles!  What can I say, my ankles didn't swell once ;)