life with jane is not plain

Alex and I have been going on quite the food adventure lately.  While I’m sorry to say that I have no pictures to prove it (camera malfunction), I do have words to describe these dishes. So I will use them. Bear with me, if you’d care to.

#1:  Bagels

On Saturday, we made bagels.  Basic how-to — Mix yeast, warm milk and a bit of bread flour in a bowl. Let sit. Add more bread flour, egg yolk, oil, sugar, salt. Let sit for longer, preferably somewhere warm. Roll dough into balls and poke out center. Let sit. Poach bagels (place in simmering water for 3 minutes each side). Brush with egg white and whatever flavor you want it to have.

Alex and I made 16 small(er) bagels in 8 flavors:

thyme, dill, oregano, cinnamon/sugar, salt, garlic salt, raisin, & cumin/oregano.  They are delicious. Warm with butter.

#2:  Slow-cooking. Simple instructions and few ingredients -   mix together dijon mustard and orange marmalade and pour it over pork-chops with thyme, salt, pepper, and a little bit of water.   Cook it on low for 6-7 hours. (Because our work days are more like 10 hours, I made this the night before and let it cook while we slept. Discovery: Cooking pork is NOT the first thing you want to smell at 6 in the morning).

#3:  Weeknight dinner by myself. Cooking just for myself allows me a little more freedom, as I don’t have to worry about accidentally feeding Alex things he might not like.  I can…experiment more.  So tonight for dinner I decide to try my luck at poaching an egg.  I had decided this before randomly coming across an article in a food magazine on how to poach an egg.  I knew it was fate.

For all the hype (see “julie & julia), it really wasn’t that hard.  I think the secret is (which my cooking magazine let me in on) to break the egg into a ramekin before you slip it into the boiling water.  Then, as you are placing it in, be careful to let water into the ramekin as the egg slides out.  Makes for a smoother transition, I think.  Once you have it in there, you just have to control the whites so they don’t spread out all over the pan. The only thing I would adjust next time is the length of time I leave it cooking.  I probably left it for about 3 minutes, but the yolk was very runny. Please imagine the rest of the dinner with a firmer set yolk. Please do not interpret that last sentence in any way but that which I intended.

The rest of the dish? Polenta fried in olive oil with tomato sauce, edamame, and cooked cabbage.  Seasoned with – dill and garlic salt (really, I use dill and garlic salt way too often for seasoning. But we like it. and it was good for the polenta/veggie mix). Oh, and just regular salt and pepper for the egg. Can’t be too creative the first time you poach an egg.

It’s health food, people, and it’s good. and economical. and not that hard to cook.

This weekend Alex and I had the chance to get away to Cayucos, a small, sleepy beachtown just up the coast from Pismo and just south of Cambria.

How nice it is to leave town, even for a couple of days.  Alex and I spent Friday afternoon driving, and arrived Friday night with just enough time to peruse the tiny grocery store and pick up a few essentials (essentials, for us, were tortilla chips, corn tortillas, hummus, apples, bacon, milk, eggs, cheese (gouda and cheddar) and butter. Oh, and two pints of icecream. we also brought popcorn and candy. Not the most well-rounded diet. so what.)

Saturday we perused antique shops and went wine-tasting. And then we went out for dinner. And oh my, was it delicious.  And affordable.

Every January, the upscale restaurants in the wine country area participate in something called restaurant month.  In this, the restaurants offer three course meals with wine pairings for only $30.  This is a good deal, people.

My meal consisted of (sorry for the absence of wine pairings, I can’t remember any of them):

1st course: baby greens tossed in a citrus vinaigrette, with a warm goat cheese round, tomatoes, cooked onions, and HALF A BULB OF ROASTED GARLIC (with a miniature fork to remove the cloves).

2nd course: salmon with wasabi mashed potatoes (probably my favorite part of the meal), green beans, and cooked spinach

3rd course: ginger creme brulee. with fresh berries. and orangey spicy jelly stuff.

There you have it. A memorable meal.

Alex and I thoroughly enjoyed a relaxing weekend away. And after a drive back on wet roads, with rainfall and traffic, we are safely home.

Deer <A hoofed grazing or browsing animal, with branched bony antlers that are shed annually and typically borne only by the male>.

::: This is our deer, Harold. I painted his outline on our kitchen wall. A friend gave him fur and spots.

This is our couch.

These are our blinds at 2:45 in the afternoon after I hit them with my hand to make them move around (attempt at photographic art #3).

I have rearranged 9 times in 6 months. I guess shifting all our stuff around to different positions in our place has eventually made it a place I like to be.

Here we are: 2010. A decade ago I remember celebrating new years as an eighth grader, welcoming in the millenium with drama and attempts at dancing. This year I spent new years eve with close friends, drinking sangria, eating ceviche and playing games. Anyone who knows me knows I love Christmas. But this year I have decided that New Years is also a day worth celebrating.

Alex and I very much enjoyed our first Christmas season together.  It was fun to attend the work Christmas parties and nice to have an excuse for extra gatherings with friends. Alex  surprised me this year with tickets to the Nutcracker at UCLA – the first time I have gotten to see the Christmas classic. We spent the holiday itself with his family in Fresno, got to attend midnight mass on Christmas Eve, feasted plenty, and had enough time to complete a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle. Sweet, sweet rest.

And now, it is time for a new year. Resolutions come first. Then lots of cleaning and reorganizing and simplifying. Time for reflection on all that took place last year, and time to look ahead and anticipate the next year. I love it. Maybe its because I love cleaning, and love restoring order. But there is also something so right about having time and space to acknowledge things that have happened, to prepare for more things that will happen, and to consider ways that we can make adjustments to ourselves to let in the richness of life. So here are a couple things I will share related to the New Year:

This is the pumpkin pie oatmeal recipe I had been wanting to make since my sister posted about it in October. Well, I made it. On December 31. It was sort of a pre-new Year’s resolution to make it, because I couldn’t see myself wanting to eat anything pumpkin flavored once the Christmas season officially ended.

This is the secretary Alex and I are the proud inheritors of. You  know what I like about antique, older furniture? Compartments. None of these OfficeDepot desktop storage things, no, this furniture’s organization is BUILT IN. And organization is to me one of the more satisfying tasks of life.

One of my projects was to reorganize our pantry. I went to Savers and bought several glass or tin canisters. Now we have cute, neat storage places for rice, flour, etc. I also threw out old frozen leftovers that were no longer worth eating. And I created a google document of recipes I want to try, that includes a column for the category the recipe falls into (soup, vegetarian), the season the recipe would most appropriately be consumed in, and the ingredients included in the recipe so that going to the store for them is less intimidating.

Finally, Alex and I are hoping to make progress in several projects this year. He is setting out to learn (master) French. I dreamed about a dress, and now want to make it. Of course, there are plans for improved physical fitness (as most all of us make after six weeks of feasting. Really, what would most New Years resolutions be if the new year fell in April or July instead of right after Thanksgiving and Christmas?) And, of course, we continue to look to God for his plans for our future and anticipate what steps we might take in 2010.

Welcome to 2010. Happy New Years, everyone.

So it’s amazing what a real photographer can do for food photos.  Two Saturdays ago, I went to my friend Shannon’s cute apartment in Pasadena.  She photographed our wedding, and did our engagement photos, and recently graduated from Biola with an art degree…and maybe should go into teaching.

Aperture. Shutter Speed. ISO. Good lighting. Voila. I can (sort-of, almost) take pictures now! These are all from her apartment, and the orange muffins just shine! I took all of them! (except, maybe the first one….I can’t remember).

How much better do these look then my oatmeal-hazelnut three-kinds-of-chocolate chip cookies mushed onto a plate and photographed at 9 p.m.?

So hopefully, now, my blog posts can only go uphill. Now if I could only find the energy to bake on Saturdays when the sun is up….

(There is a copy of the recipe for these muffins here.)

Alex and I have been keeping busy.  We thought we had finished our apartment decorating and then I decided to paint a deer on the wall.  We thought we were all done with big events and then we decided to host a Halloween party (pictures coming soon). Alex has finished chapter two for his research assitant assignment, and is now moving on to chapter three.  What can we say — we have realized that we both like projects.

Now, I am sitting on my couch (while he is off at meetings), trying to ignore the loud helicopter obviously searching our apartment complex and hoping that whatever it might be searching for is found before I have to go change our laundry. Scary.

Anyways, here are a few photos of recently made meals*/other sundry things:

First up. Sausage and white beans with carrots and spinach and breadcrumbs, via Real Simple, for the occasion of Alex’s birthday eve.

Next – Oatmeal Hazelnut chocolate chip cookies with mugs of mulled cider. And…the Nightmare Before Christmas (which took 3 years to shoot, and each second has 27 frames of posed puppet action, and Jack (the main character) has 400 different faces that attach to his body for his different expressions and vowels. And 3 different eyes that insert to make him blink (I watched the making of the movie – this is what college grads do with their spare time?)).

Number 3. Brown Rice, Roasted Vegetables (including Butternut Squash and Onions), and Chicken cooked in apple cider.

*Note: I have now realized that taking pictures of food that look somewhat appetizing is a skill I do not have. I’m sorry. Please imagine that it tasted better than it looks.

And…a sneak preview. You can’t tell from these costumes, but this was our Halloween party (and the man in this picture is not Alex…um, just in case you couldn’t tell).

Upcoming events/projects –

-I take the practice GRE this Saturday.  Just for practice.  No really, I have no idea if I want to go to Grad school yet.

-I bought file folders and labels to clean up our paperwork. Exciting, huh?

-Alex and I have our first attempt at exercising before work…tomorrow. Wish us luck. This involves a 5:45 a.m. wake up call, a quick cup of coffee, packing breakfast, and diving into a (hopefully) warm(ish) pool. We call this adventure.

-Go get the laundry from the dryer. The helicopter is gone. Hopefully the crime scene has been cleaned up as well.

I have discovered at least one thing I really like about working a 7:30-4:30 job.  If I have a spontaneous urge to bake at night, I

1. Have the money to buy the ingredients

2. Likely already have them stocked, since I have my own kitchen

and 3. Have nothing stopping me (like reading Ecclesiology books, studying Greek, writing essays on Modernism, or wedding planning, all of which kept me very busy the last couple of falls).

So, one night I decided to bake these:

PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY THUMBPRINTS (Martha Stewart Living, Oct. 09)

With the help of my kitchen aid mixer, oven mitts,

new baking sheets,

and a chair –

I made these! They were delicious. Perfect with a glass of milk and your favorite knit *rabbit pillow.

*limited availability at Savers.

the family

Besides the many adventures involved in navigating the city and wedding activities, I had decided to help my brother and his wife by baking their wedding cakes! Since this was a first time deal for me, and across the country, and per the bride’s wishes, I decided to keep it simple — three smaller cakes, no tiers, and 6 dozen cupcakes which local friends will bake and I will only frost.

the kitchen

the frosting

My family stayed in a condo, and the kitchen was actually quite nice. Once I arrived I quickly set to work to make:

-two double-layered mocha spice cakes

-one quadruple layered pistachio-hazelnut cake

-3 giant vats of frosting: chocolate ganache, buttercream, and pistachio buttercream.

There was also a third kind of cake present in the cupcakes – an Applesauce cake. (Pretty much all the recipes are Martha Stewart)

Anyways, apart from a few nervous moments (1. the GIANT tub of chocolate ganache, when needed for spreading, was rather…frozen…I think it took about 2 hours of constant stirring in a dangerously constructed double-boiler (thanks Mom and Rachel), at which point it was just melty….great, 2. Shakily trying to frost all 72 cupcakes while waiting til 5 p.m. for lunch because the loyal boys run to the local hot dog joint was upset by a flat tire, a blown tire, an hour long line, and a late-spotted sign that read “cash only”, and 3. Transporting all 72 cupcakes and cakes across city streets in the rain as we rushed to rehearsal dinner, ), all went well, and the cakes seemed to turn out:

See –

cakes

the lovely bride and groom

– and now, it is my turn to eat cake. Alex and I are in the process of eating the top tier of our wedding cake (come on, who can wait a year?)

Dear friends & family,

Welcome to my new blog. The title really says it all -  I hope to journal my way through this first year out of college, newly married and working full time, to show the ways that life is anything but plain. I want to post pictures of my attempts at baking, cooking, decorating, making crafts, exploring Los Angeles and its surrounding suburbs, spending time with friends, and perhaps occasionally having a go at poetry or other types of writing. This project is not just a way to entertain myself or make the days seem fun, but actually is supported by the happy, hearty belief that our good God created the world, and that He created all things good.

We delight in God’s creation both by loving that which he created and by using the creative capacities he has given us  — there is a need to know and love the materials before we can use them to make something new. This process – our worship and imitation of God’s creating and creation – is one that I find particularly beautiful and meaningful. To either explore the goodness of those things given to us, or to invest in the process of making something that is good, are acts worthy of my time and energy.

So there you are. I do hope you enjoy.