Cookies for Allison

Allison called me today to tell me about her "life changing cookie experience." She then went on to describe eating what I am fairly certain was a almond thumbprint cookie with a Rolo candy melted on top. Being the generous and amicable person that I am, I offered to make her a batch of said cookies and entirely sabotage her attempts at dieting.

She accepted my offer.


Every year at Christmastime my dear friend Sarah Pavis makes me a plate of these delicious noms, which I consume so quickly that it might make a lesser person ill. Here is the recipe, straight from Sarah's mom (insert mom joke here) with pictorial annotations by your's truly:


Ingredients
2 sticks butter, softened
1 egg
1 tsp salt
1 tsp almond extract
1/3 cup + 2 Tbsp Sugar (1 cup if doubling recipe)
2 1/2 cups flour


-Preheat oven to 350° F
-Mix all ingredients together well *



* Dough will look all crumbly DON'T PANIC just smoosh it with your hands like this---->

- Roll dough into small balls
- Place on ungreased baking sheet
- Press thumb into middle of cookie*

*This part is the most fun! Kitties can help too!

-Add desired topping, (sugar crystals, sprinkles, almonds, if you are doing a melty topping like kisses, rolos, jam, etc wait until later...I'll tell you when!)
-Bake 8-10 minutes.*

*While the cookies are baking, unwrap your melty toppings. (Kitties can help with this too!)
-Remove from oven and add melty toppings immediately.*
*Quick, Quick they need time to melt!!


-EAT 'EM!

This recipe makes about 30 cookies.

Mick Napier's Hash Brown How-to

Mick Napier, Artistic Director of the Annoyance Theater in Chicago, included this step-by-step guide to making hash browns in the latest email newsletter.

Dude, you have GOT to get your motherfucking Hash Brown ON! Go get that red potato, not a brown or white, a fucking RED potato and the grater. Don't have a grater, then go straight to IDIOTVILLE. Get a grater on the way home from the job you hate and hold the RED potato. We are doing HASH BROWNS moron! OK, now, grate the potato! There's two to four of you so you want to reach for another RED potato but DO NOT!! That's part of the hash brown secret fuck head, one potato! Why? I'll get to that. Now don't be stupid, find the PAPER TOWELS! Why, because you are making FUCKING EXCELLENT HASH BROWNS for A MEAL to enjoy. Put the shredded RED potato (One) on two sheets of paper fucking towel. Roll it. Get two more sheets of paper towels. Unroll potato on new sheets. Roll it and squeeze. Two more sheets, transfer RED potato (One, not two). Roll it and squeeze. That's right, two more sheets. (DO NOT FUCK THIS UP). SQUEEZE. That is EIGHT sheets total. Eight sheets of paper towel. You can actually omit this step if you want to FUCK UP YOUR HASH BROWNS!! Now, get a skillet that is NOT TEFLON. (Doesn't quite burn properly) Now get BUTTER not OIL. The reason for this is to NOT FUCK UP MAKING the hash browns. Heat the NON Teflon skillet and put a slice of BUTTER in it. Let it melt and simmer for a BIT. Now put RED potato (one) in skillet. IMPORTANT: Find a METAL spatula. You want to further chop the POTATO (red) in the skillet and then MASH and POUND IT DOWN!! More even. Now more. NOW you know why you only need ONE potato. You fucking have got to get that THINNED out in the skillet so they will not be "cakey", but they will get to be the fucking crispy hash browns you find in a DINER. (If you've never been to a diner you're really missing out on something). ANYWAY, NOW! DO! Not flip those hash browns yet! Goddamn, do not touch them! Let them burn. Yes, DRY! (remember the paper towel steps earlier???) Yes BURN. NOW! DO NOT flip them yet!! Listen to me, Let them burn a bit more! Is there a little smoke coming out from underneath? Well then YOU DID IT HAWKING!! A little bit more...... and FLIP IT!! Now you've done it! Fuck It!! (Do not add onion, garlic, salt, or pepper..... believe you me, I went down that crooked road, take it from me it's not a good one..... let the potato (red) flavor win) You are done. You did it. Now's the hard part..... You have to go through the entire day knowing that you made perfect hash browns. Good luck to you.

-Mick Napier, Artistic Director

Delicious Red Wine Buttercream Frosting!

Pardon the silly photo, but they always disappear before I get a chance to take a picture of them! I wanted to post a link to the website I got the recipe from, because this is the most amazing frosting ever. Very Small Anna is an awesome food blog written by a pastry student in NY (presumably named Anna and being very small) who makes some awesome baked tasties. Poking around on her blog gives me all kinds of food fantasy ideas. Toasted Marshmallow Frosting, anyone?

This frosting just cries out for chocolately cake! The cupcake recipe I used is my standard chocolate cake recipe, but it's a bit to dry for these. They work better as mini-cupcakes, but I think a fudgier chocolate cake, or one with espresso in it, would be even more exciting. And they definitely want dark chocolate shavings on top!

A few notes on the making of buttercream, as this is the first I've made (twice). Buy yourself a candy thermometer, first of all. But mostly, pay attention to the recipe! The temperatures of the ingredients are super important. I tried to rush it the second time and wound up with a melty butter spread; luckily upon chilling it a bit I was able to whip it back up again. Sadly, the chilling separated the wine a bit, but no real harm done. I also recommend adding a bit more wine and mulling spices to your sauce pot and letting it simmer down a bit longer to the same, syrupy amount. This frosting borders on being too buttery, and the extra spiced wine really takes it to a happy place.


P.S.I'm going to use some of her recipes for the new ICE CREAM MAKER Chrysteena got me. WHOO!!!

ZOMG! I want a YuDu!

I just saw a very compelling commercial for the YuDu at home screen printing system. Seems that this do-hickey reduces a lot of the mess and frustration of traditional hand screen printing.

They never out and out tell you how much it costs, but it seems to run about $200 on various websites.

I've got a birthday in June. I'm just saying. *wink*

Oh, here's a link to the infomercial. Just try and tell me this isn't cool.

Wedding Flowers; or These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

I work at A Stem Above, a floral design and event decor company here in Chicago. Today, while writing proposals for the upcoming season's brides, I found myself in need of a bit of inspiration for a bride with no color palate or specific wants other than the color periwinkle. I thought I would share a few of my personal favorites and an antidote to all the cold and grey us poor Chicagoans are putting up with these days.



This first image comes from Floral Verde, a design company in Michigan. This is a favorite of mine for a number of reasons. As much as I appreciate the tradition of carrying all white, it's often so boring and outdated, so lifeless! This is a bridal bouquet with lots of color and personality, but still lots of dignity. I love the dusty purple scabbiosa and succulents and the texture of the seeded eucalyptus pods. I also really appreciate the use of two different varieties of blue delphinium. Full disclosure here: this is almost exactly the bridal bouquet that I've thought up for myself during the boring hours at work. (We all do it, it's the florist's curse!) The differences being that I would want dusty purple roses, yellow mimosa, and maybe some craspedia to brighten things up. I've always really loved the dusty purple, soft yellow and light gray color palate for weddings.



This bouquet is the matching bridesmaid's bouquet to the above one, also from Floral Verde. I love the trade-off between the textural subtlety of the bride's bouquet and the relatively simpler design of the bridesmaid's, made up for with a punch of color. The soft blue ribbon-wrapped handle is an especially nice detail. But in truth, I would probably like almost any bouquet that included craspedia, those funny yellow balls you see above.



This image comes from Brooklyn Bride Online, one of my favorite wedding blogs to peek at now and again. The bouquet is made by Blossom and Branch. I'm not crazy about the folded-leaf-cuff look, but I love the elevation of marigolds to a wedding flower, and I'm a sucker for matte grey brunia you see. The contrast with the bright colors of the roses and marigolds is great, and I love that not too many floral varieties were used in this particular bouquet.



This image comes from the almighty Martha Stewart, and I have to say it's one of the few instances of faux floral work that I like. These silk leaves catch the light beautifully and would look wonderful arching downward against a white gown. Just goes to show that you don't always need bright colors and crazy imported floral to make a splash.



l And finally, another image from Martha. I saw this in Martha Stewart Weddings (Fall '06, to be exact) a few years ago when I first started as a florist, and I've thought of it ever since. Just beautiful. Here's a link to a few images of the spread on her website. The 'Tulip Mania" bouquet is especially dramatic.

Adventures in Baking

Hello. I am Allison and I was once afraid of baking. That is right, I hated baking! Any recipe involving baking soda or yeast sent me running! Yet, I knew somewhere deep down I too could make delicious breads, scrumptious cookies, and delightful cakes. Thus, one of my recent goals has been to teach myself how to bake. There have been a few mishaps (for example I doubled a cookie recipe and wound up with more dough than I knew what to do with) but my inner baker is beginning to emerge. My latest adventure has been making bagels. For these bagels I used Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day cookbook. The book is amazing and I highly recommend it!

The snapshot you see are my bagel results. Let me just say that they taste delicious. I put some cream cheese and smoked salmon on one this morning for breakfast and I simply cannot wait for the lunch sequel!

I am one step closer to embracing the baker within!

Cooking With Dog

I'm currently in the process of transferring all my files to my new computer, so I suspect it'll be a while before my photos of craft projects are available for posting here. But in the meantime, it's just about lunchtime and my thoughts would be turning to food if they weren't always about food in the first place. So I thought I would share one of the YouTube how-to channels that I often use to try to make more authentic Japanese food at home.



For reasons that aren't really explained, this channel is hosted by a poodle, but don't worry... all the cooking is done by an adorable Japanese woman. I've used recipes from 'Dog' a few times, and I've always wanted to try making the Ramen. I never realized how much work goes into a dish we all take so for granted. The dishes aren't always purely Japanense (a few Chinese ones sneak in now and again, and I think there's a hamburger for some reason) and the instructions aren't always the clearest, but I'm a person who prefers not to cook from a recipe anyway. I like the opportunity to know how things are made but also to modify the recipe slightly.