Passover 2013

So I guess, to some extent, this blog is turning into a place for me to record recipes that I know I will want to find again in the future. This year for passover I've come across some new and amazing recipes for passover seder. On top of the desserts that I always make, I added one new one that I found on my favorite food blog Smitten Kitchen. (Did I mention I got to see Deb speak a few months ago and get my book signed? She was quite entertaining and super nice). I tried her recipe for chocolate toffee covered matzo, and omg was it delish! Be careful because you will want to eat it all at once. My next adventure was with charosset. One of my passover guests is allergic to apples, so I searched the internet to see if there was an alternative to the traditional apple charosset, and was surprised to find that the traditional sephardic recipe isnt apple at all! It was dates and oranges mixed with cinnamon and red wine...can we say delish? I will certainly be making this again. My last experiment wasnt quite as successful. I tried tinkering with the matzo balls. I know, I know...they are already perfect so why mess with a good thing? Dont worry I still made 2 batches of regular matzo balls, but then I made the third batch Safran flavored (or safron or saffron...however you want to spell it). I got the recipe from the same site as the chrosset. My only problem was that they asked for the Safran in ounces, and I had a giant costco bottle of Safran (no joke), so I just sorta took a few pinches of safran and called it a day. It did make the balls yellow which was cool, but it turns out that I dont love Safran flavor, so it wasnt my favorite. I will come back later and update this with photos.

Blanket Complete

or at least its almost complete, I have to weave in the ends still. You may recall that almost a year ago I blogged about starting a new project. Well I'm happy to say that I'm all done (actually i've been done for a while but slacked on posting anything).

This blanket is so soft and warm! I love it!

Photo Editors On The Fly!

I've had a lot of cooking "crafts" lately, and its time for a change. Here is the start of my playing around with my iphone photo editing apps. It all started when I got a free snapseed app at Starbucks a few months ago, but never tried using it till my co worker showed me that it actually worked pretty well. On top of that last night I came home to an amazing sunset that just had to be captured via my dslr, peter's camera phone, and my iphone camera!

un-edited iphone photo
I then processed it through snapseed and instagram since I already had it on my phone

Snapseed (also first attempt processing anything on my phone)
I'm pretty happy how the first attempt at processing a picture on my phone came out, plus snapseed doesnt force you to share your photos, and just hitting save saves to your phone's photo library instead of getting stuck inside the app. This was my top pick, but quite pricey if it hadnt been free from starbucks.

Instagram - which i'm sure everyone has heard of unless they live under a rock. Since I didnt want to share the photo with the world my photo just got saved to the app, and now i cannot figure out how to go back and get it off my phone since it doesnt seem to let me retroactively share a photo, so you dont get to see the decent processing instagram did. This app probably gets my lowest rating since i'm not using it for social networking.

I then began googling best iphone photo editing apps and came across camera+ for a low 99 cents so I splurged and bought it. This app was fairly easy to use and offered a bunch of fun effects. I was less happy with the set borders that could be applied though.
Camera +

Next I tried Adobe Photoshop Lite since I know it works pretty well for real photos on the computer. The processing options were limited, or you could pay extra for addtional effects.

Adobe Photoshop Lite

Lastly I played with one called Camera Awesomeness but the app tried too hard to be funny so that took away points, plus I wasnt happy with the final product from this app, so I wont show that picture


While I'm add it, I'll add that I also love ColorSplash. Not quite the same, but a cool effect anyway where you can turn your photo black and white and selectively bring color back in.

Has anyone else played with iphone photo editors? if so what did you think?

Olympics!

I hope you are all enjoying the Olympics even if the opening ceremony was sorta lame. I got invited to my friend's to watch the opening ceremony complete with olympic themed foods.
I decided to make my favorite pasta salad with an olympic twist! I found out on pinterest that if you add food dye to the water when boiling the pasta you could turn the pasta colors! So simple, yet I hadnt throught of it before. So with my blue and white pasta I added Yellow, Red, and Green Peppers, and black olives.

Katie made desserts and snacks in the olympic theme. She's very creative! She started with Olympic Torches

and moved on to Olympic Medals (who doesnt like fruit by the foot!)

And the center piece was olympic rings cake!

Chocolate Classes

While i'm at it I'll post about the chocolate making/champagne tasting class peter took me to for valentines day. The class was taught at 918 F street by the chef from Coco Sala.

We made raspberry truffle pops, and were delicious! here is a picture of the pops before the 2nd side was added.

Look for another post soon from another class I will be taking there with my friend Julie.

The big 3-0

Well hello again, sorry for the big gap in posts. I guess I haven't been that crafty lately, but here I am once again with some delicious baked goods. I baked a plethora of desserts to celebrate my 30th birthday! Julie asked me why I was making my own birthday treats, and my answer was that I loved to cook (and this way peter and I wouldn't end up eating it all).

A few months ago I made Italian Rainbow Cookies, and while they were delicious there was still room to improve, so I thought I'd try again with two notable differences. First I used vegetable shortening in the frosting instead of butter, and boy what a difference that made! It was easy to spread and appropriately thick, so if you are going to try this recipe definitely go with the shortening, and if you live near here come use mine b/c I now have a whole package that I'm never going to use. The Second difference was the color choice. These no longer look italian or like christmas, but instead summary and pretty!

My next dessert was inspired by one of the most addictive websites ever created...pinterest of course. I made peanut butter-Graham Cracker Truffles and boy were they delicious! We made them much smaller than the recipe called for which I think was a good move since they were too delicious and this provide a little portion control.

Surprisingly most easily, I made mini cheesecakes with blueberries or chocolate chips on top.

Lastly, but certainly not least, a good friend brought over home made marzipan flavored marshmallows. Check out her website to see all the amazing flavors she makes

I still have a few days till my actual birthday, but I'm feeling very lucky to have such great friends and family to share these desserts with, or just tell them about from afar, and I cant wait to turn 30! Happy Birthday To Me ;)

Caramel Ganache Tartlettes

For Diana's Annual Wine and Cheese Sarah and Leslie came to town and we baked some delicious tartletts. We modified a few recipes and added our own twist. We made Caramel Tartlettes with a mini pretzel and drizzled with chocolate ganache.
For the caramel sarah showed us how to make it since she's an expert. The caramel looked so pretty while it was cooking

We then spooned about 2 tablespoons in to the shells we had made. We had read it would take 4 hours to set, but it turns out for the purpose we were using it for, it was almost immediately useable.

Leslie-the pretzler- put one mini pretzle on each one and then I drizzled ganache on top (the ganache tasted good but really did take forever to dry). These were so delicious! I cant wait to make them again.