1. Ava’s Hello Kitty Birthday

   November 2, 2013 by Daniora

   

   Are we glossing over the fact that I haven’t posted anything in over a year and a half? Yes, yes we are.

   My little buddy Ava turned 4 this spring. She wanted to have a Hello Kitty themed birthday. She asked her mom if Auntie Mimi would make her a Hello Kitty cake. Of course Auntie Mimi would make her a Hello Kitty cake.

   

   Since Ava is our little princess, a castle cake seemed to be the right answer. My girl loves pink too, obviously. Since there were going to be a whole bunch of people there, I went ahead and made some Hello Kitty cupcakes to go with it.

   
   

   While I’m not the biggest fan of Wilton’s fondant (the taste, mostly), there were two Wilton products that I fell in LOVE with.

   The first is one of their silicone fondant press molds (I used the global one). They’re super easy to use and make really beautiful impressions. All I did was loosely press a piece of fondant into the mold, then used a small plastic rolling pin to roll it flat into the mold. Once the excess fondant had been rolled out, I could just peel the pieces out of the mold and trim around the edges. Simple!

   

   The basic castle shape. You can really see the details from the fondant mold.

   

   The other are their sugar pearls. They come in a variety of soft colors (I got pink, of course). They were the perfect flower centers and accents to my fondant pieces. I just pressed them into the fondant while it was still soft, and they stuck perfectly. A word of caution. They are roly poly and will get away from you if you let them.

   

   Perfect centers for flowers

   

   Sugar pearls….. everywhere.

   

   Kitty with a sugar pearl necklace.

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

   In addition to the cake, because that’s never enough, I made a party dress for Ava.

   

   Pretty in pink.

   It was my first time using the pre-smocked fabric. It was really super simple, but I don’t know that I’d do it again. It sort of feels like cheating. It’s really only one seam and sewing on the straps. It’s also fairly pricey, running around $0.50 an inch (I know that doesn’t sound like much, but it comes out to $18 a yard!) It did turn out pretty cute, though.  Of course, the attitude sells it.

   

   Attitude for days!

   I love doing stuff for the kids’ birthdays. Any excuse for a celebration.

   Category Food and Cooking, Holidays and Celebrations, Sewing | Tags: birthday,cake,fondant,Hello Kitty | No Comments

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2. Ava’s Pirate Birthday

   July 19, 2012 by Daniora

   One of the benefits to being “Auntie” to everyone’s kids while having none of my own is that I have the time to go completely overboard for birthdays and holidays. When my sweet, adorable girly Ava wanted to have a pirate birthday party, I was very excited. She is definitely a girl after my own heart.

   We just finished moving (well, are you ever really finished moving?) so I didn’t have the time or set up to do as many projects as I would have liked, but I did get to make Ava’s birthday cake.

   

   The finished cake. I wish I had put the sails a little higher, but I’m really happy with how cute it came out.

   I based it off a cake from the 2010 Wilton Yearbook. The original was just a square cake with wood texture with a whole bunch of little brownie pop pirates on it. Since there were going to be quite a few people, we used a store bought sheet cake as a base.

   Having a summer birthday myself and having watched the horn slide off a unicorn and Rainbow Brite’s castle sag in the heat, I wanted to make sure things were going to stand up to the sun. I made the square boat base out of Rice Krispy treats and covered them with brown fondant. I put in the wood texture and added the rails along the top.

   

   The little girl pirate figure is made entirely out of fondant. She weighs a ton. Her little curls were my favorite part, and most of them actually made it to the time the cake was served.

   

   So, while the cake was the biggest of my piratey projects, it wasn’t everything. After Brian and I picked out some sweet gifts, I couldn’t be happy just wrapping them in pirate wrapping paper (Target has a really cute one, though).

   

   What’s better than a gift wrapped in pirate wrapping paper? A gift wrapped in pirate wrapping paper in a treasure chest, of course!

   I stained an unfinished treasure chest from Joann’s and put sticky felt on the bottom so it wouldn’t scratch their wood floors. Then I put in the wrapped gifts and put the whole shebang in a cellophane bag. When all was said and done, it really made quite an impact.

   

   Ooh, sparkly!

   I also tried out those new Sally Hansen nail polish stickers. These were too perfect for me not to get! They went on almost as easily as the commercial would have you believe, and lasted for quite a while, even at work.

   

   Avast! Even Emma gets into it.

   I had so much fun at Ava’s pirate party. I even went in the bouncy house. Now I can’t wait for the next birthday party to come around.

   Category Food and Cooking, Holidays and Celebrations | Tags: birthday,cake,party,pirate | No Comments

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3. The Orange Marmalade Disaster

   May 4, 2012 by Daniora

   It’s getting closer to that time when I get to start canning and making jams, jellys, and preserves again. I’m sure we all remember the yummy strawberry and carrot cake jams of last year. The Nerdly Home is in the process of moving, and we’ll be near a very large weekly farmers’ market, ensuring that I’ll soon be posting lots of pictures of my spreadable triumphs.

   Lest I get too full of myself, I feel I must relate the tale of The Orange Marmalade Disaster.

   

   That’s some pretty looking marmalade, isn’t it? Looks good enough to spread on a warm crumpet or maybe even a scone. It looks so refined, so elegant.

   Well, it tastes awful.

   I’m not sure why I wanted to make marmalade. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that it was winter, and one of the few things in season and actually worth canning was citrus. When cruising around looking for recipes, I found one from Alton Brown. Not only was it simple, it was from someone whose recipes I trust. I read through the recipe reviews and learned that I’d probably have to cook it longer than the recipe called for, but otherwise, they were all positive. I felt confident in the recipe and felt well prepared.

   I went to the store and bought the best looking oranges I could find. I brought them home and lovingly sliced them by hand. I enjoy using these sorts of opportunities to sharpen my knife skills.

   

   This is the point where we encounter the problem with Alton Brown’s recipe. No where does it tell you what variety of oranges to use. More importantly, it doesn’t tell you what varieties not to use.

   It turns out that navel oranges, the ones that were newly in season and the best looking at the store, have way too much pith (the bitter white stuff) to use in marmalade. Well, you can use them, but you have to peel them, then remove the pith from the peel before adding the peel back into the mix. Juicing type oranges like valencias are much better, since they have a thinner layer of pith. The pith, while bitter, does contain the pectin you need to help your marmalade stay together. It’s a magical balance that takes cooking from science to art.

   So after my hours of careful cooking and canning, I wound up with eight jars of beautiful, bitter, foul tasting orange marmalade. To make matters worse, because of the excess amount of pith, I wound up with a marmalade so stiff, I’m fairly certain that I couldn’t spread it on anything if I tried. I did let the marmalade rest a few days, since some reviews and instructions said that even with the right oranges, the marmalade can be bitter immediately after it’s made and will mellow over time. This didn’t. There’s no saving it.

   So in the near future, when berries and fruits go from farmers’ market to jars in my kitchen with delicious results, let’s all remember the tragedy of the orange marmalade. We’ll call it a “learning experience” and soldier on.

   Category Food and Cooking, Recipes | Tags: canning,disaster,jam,orange,orange marmalade | 1 Comment

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4. CSAs and LocalHarvest.org

   April 23, 2012 by Daniora

   

   Tasty cherry tomatoes from our garden.

   This is it. This is the year. This year I’m finally going to sign up for a CSA.

   What’s a CSA? It stands for Community Sponsored Agriculture, and it works sort of like a Kickstarter for farming. Growing vegetables to sell has a high start up cost, and it takes a while before you have any product to sell to start recouping some of those costs. What a CSA allows farmers to do is sell shares to people in the spring, when their spending is high. Then, once the harvests start coming in, those people who purchased shares get a supply of fruits and vegetables every week. It’s like taking care of all of your produce shopping for the season up front.

   CSAs, like farmers’ markets, are growing in popularity. With the return to eating local and in season foods (hooray!), more and more people prefer to get their produce straight from the source rather than something transported in from far away. As a result, they are getting easier to find.

   

   Enter localharvest.org. This is a fantastic resource that I stumbled upon when searching for a CSA near our soon-to-be new home. You can use it to search for farms, farmers’ markets, CSAs, even online stores and restaurants that serve food made from local ingredients. Each farm in their database has a listing that provides information on the services they offer (CSAs, market days) and even what types of produce they grow and approximately when it is available. This is an especially handy feature for those who aren’t gardeners and are still learning when certain produce is available in their area.

   They also provide contact information for all the farms in case you’ve got questions. I find most farmers are super friendly and more than willing to help you with any questions you have. It’s not just for produce either. A quick search shows that there are meat and seafood CSAs available in addition to the more traditional fruits and veggies. Many also offer things like fresh milk, eggs, and honey. (You all buy local honey, right??!?)

   CSAs vary greatly from one another; some have set produce for each week, some allow you to choose your favorites. Some deliver and some have pick up locations. Be sure to read the listing carefully and ask any questions to make sure that the CSA you choose is the right one for you.

   LocalHarvest.org (also on Facebook and Twitter) is just another example of how using the technology and resources at hand can help you live better. Imagine if all these farms had to rely on word of mouth or flyers and ads in the newspaper. I’m sure they wouldn’t be nearly as successful as they are now. This expansion of the online community has really allowed these smaller growers to be more competitive and offer their superior product to more people in a world previously dominated by factory farms.

   (Speaking of Facebook and Twitter, have you joined The Nerdly Home social network yet? Follow, like, etc. today!)

   Category Food and Cooking, Resources | Tags: csa,farm,local harvest,produce | No Comments

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5. A brief word about spices

   January 23, 2012 by Daniora

   Let’s have a little talk about spices and what makes them great. There are so many different herbs and spices out there, and they can be used to add a lot of flavor without adding fat or salt. They are what give different culinary styles and regions their own unique flare. Spices can get pricey, especially for some of the more exotic ones. However, you don’t have to spend a lot to get the most out of your flavorings. One of the biggest indicators of a spice’s taste is freshness.

   Allow me to present an example:

   Here are two spoons of paprika. The one on the left is from a jar that is of questionable age and has been stored near the stove. The one on the right is from a freshly purchased jar. They are both McCormick brand paprika from the grocery store, nothing fancy. They were the same price. The only distinction is freshness, and I think the differences are readily noticeable. In addition to their appearance, the new paprika definitely had a stronger aroma and definitely tasted stronger and richer.

   The lesson for today: You can spend a lot of money to buy the highest quality spices and grind them yourself… but you don’t have to. Grocery store spices are perfectly serviceable and delicious. Whether you spend a lot or a little, buy in smaller amounts so that they’ll always be fresh and store them out of direct sunlight and away from heat.

   Category Food and Cooking | Tags: cooking,freshness,ingredients,spices | No Comments

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6. Old Fashioned Apple Crisp

   September 16, 2011 by Daniora

   I hadn’t really intended to do another recipe post this week. When I woke up to a perfect autumn day and a bag of freshly picked apples, I knew a crisp was in the cards for today.

   

   In general, I don’t really like pie crust.  When buying pies from the local orchard, I always get crumb topped and, more often than not, the bottom crust of my serving gets thrown away. As a result, apple crisp is one of my favorite fruit goodies.

   The fantastic thing about this recipe is that you can adapt it to suit your needs. If your apples are really sweet, you can decrease the amount of sugar in the filling. You can alter the spices if you like. You can leave out the cloves or decrease the amount of cinnamon. I’ve even been known to add a dash of ginger when I’m feeling a little exotic. The warm spices and zesty citrus guarantee delicious results even when using less than perfect apples. Plus, the topping has oatmeal in it; that makes it a breakfast food, right? Right?

   Old Fashioned Apple Crisp

   Filling:

   • ● 5 pounds McIntosh or Macoun apples
   • ● Grated zest of 1 orange
   • ● Grated zest of 1 lemon
   • ● 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
   • ● 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
   • ● 1/2 cup granulated sugar
   • ● 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
   • ● 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
   • ● 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

    

   For the topping:

   • ● 1 1/2 cups flour
   • ● 3/4 cup granulated sugar
   • ● 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
   • ● 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
   • ● 1 cup oatmeal
   • ● 1/2 pound cold unsalted butter, diced

    

   1. Preheat the oven to 350° F. Butter a 9 by 14 by 2-inch baking dish.
   2. Peel, core, and cut the apples into large wedges. Combine the apples with the zests, juices,
      sugar, and spices. Pour into the dish.
   3. To make the topping, combine the flour, sugars, salt, oatmeal, and cold butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until the mixture is crumbly and the butter is the size of peas (this can also be done by hand). Scatter evenly over the apples. Dust lightly with a pinch of cinnamon.
   4. Place the crisp on a sheet pan and bake for 1 hour until the top is brown and the apples are
      bubbly. Serve warm (with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, if desired).

   Category Food and Cooking, Recipes | Tags: apple crisp,apples,baking,cooking,dessert,recipe | No Comments

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7. Grilled chicken wings

   September 14, 2011 by Daniora

   In honor of the first weekend of the regular football season, we’re going to talk about one of the quintessential football snacks: chicken wings.

   

   Cooking chicken wings without using a deep fryer is a time consuming and intensive process.  There’s a lot you have to do to make sure that the skin winds up crispy. Until recently, I followed Alton Brown’s method of first steaming the wings and chilling them uncovered in the refrigerator before roasting them in the oven. It’s a process that takes hours and hours, but ultimately you wind up with good results.

   This summer, I decided that we should try grilling the wings. Our local market, Butcher Boy, has marinated wings for sale, as well as big bags of plain wings. I picked up a package of teriyaki marinated wings for our first experiment. Those first results were a little hit and miss.

   The biggest problem we encountered was that there were a lot of flare ups on the grill from the chicken skin, and we didn’t have a spray bottle of water handy.  A rookie mistake, I know, but most of our other grilling hasn’t really required this sort of preparation. The second problem was that the wings stuck to the grill, especially with the marinade on it.  The flavor of the finished wings was good, but the teriyaki flavor really got lost.

   

   A spray bottle is a necessity to keep flare ups under control.

   Our second attempt yielded much better results. We started with plain wings, got some Pam for grilling and liberally sprayed down the grill before cooking, and coated the wings in sauce after cooking. Something about the char from the chicken mixing with the sauces really added a new level of flavor to the wings. I made two types of sauces, Alton Brown’s orange glazed wings and a basic buffalo (see below). Both were outstanding on the crispy skin (even though the char did turn the buffalo sauce a sort of muddy brown color).

   Grilling wings is still a fair amount of work.  It takes constant vigilance to combat flare ups and make sure that all the little wings get crispy and don’t stick to the grill.  It is, however, much faster than the steam-and-roast method and has much better results. Depending on the size of your grill, it can be a great way to cook up food for a large crowd.

   Basic Buffalo Sauce

   I’m not a huge fan of  very spicy buffalo wings. I avoid anything with the words “volcano” or “atomic”. I like them to have a bit of heat, but still retain a depth of flavor. You can substitute any hot sauce of your choice and increase the amount to your desired heat level.

   • 3 ounces unsalted butter
   • 1 small clove garlic, minced
   • 1/4 cup hot sauce (I prefer Frank’s)
   • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

    

   1.  Melt the butter in a small bowl along with the garlic.
   2. Pour melted butter and garlic, along with hot sauce and salt, into a bowl large enough to hold all of the chicken and stir to combine.
   3. Remove the wings from the grill and toss with the sauce. Serve warm with a side of blue cheese dressing if desired.

    

   As the season progresses, stay tuned for lots more football snacks and party ideas.

   Category Food and Cooking, Recipes | Tags: chicken,cooking,football,grilling,party food,recipe,wings | No Comments

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8. Carrot Cake Jam

   July 26, 2011 by Daniora

   
   

   I recently picked up a special issue from Better Homes and Gardens all about canning. It has tons of recipes for jams, preserves, and pickles. Every group of fruits and vegetables are represented, and there are even two full pages of recipes for dealing with your surplus zucchini. The issue will be available until August 9th, so I recommend picking up a copy.

   The first recipe I tried out of this new resource was for carrot cake jam. They recommend serving it on toast with a bit of cream cheese (since real carrot cake generally has cream cheese frosting). I’ve been having it on crackers, and it’s fantastic. I will say one thing about it; it’s extremely sweet. This is a jam to be used sparingly, not slathered heavily on your morning English muffin.

   Because this recipe has a pretty high yield, I wound up getting myself an actual canning pot. It can process up to eight half pint jars at a time. The one problem with this is that our kitchen is currently plagued by a particularly small stove. As a result, the canning pot and the dutch oven I use to cook the jam do not fit on the burners at the same time. This made sterilizing and warming the jars while keeping the jam hot a tricky feat. I also happened to pick a 90° day to test out this new recipe. Between the bubbling jam and the steaming canning pot, it was not a comfortable experience. However, the end result was totally worth it.

   I think the one flaw in this attempt at jam making was that I didn’t cook it quite long enough. In spite of having fantastic instructions on how to check to see if the jam is done, I completely ignored them and went purely on the cooking times given in the recipe. As a result, the jam isn’t quite as firm as it is supposed to be.This is also the first jam I’ve made using pectin, so I wasn’t entirely sure how precisely I had to adhere to the cooking times. Next time I’ll be sure to check how gelled it is before putting it in the jars.

   The recipe yields seven half pint jars, so I’ve been handing jars out to my friends and family. They have been universally well received. I’m looking forward to using it as the jam for a batch of thumbprint cookies.

   Category Books and Magazines, Food and Cooking | Tags: canning,carrots,jam | No Comments

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9. Sam’s Ork Birthday

   July 6, 2011 by Daniora

   Last month, one of my best friends, Sam, turned 30.  In honor of the occasion, we threw him an Ork birthday party.

   

   An Ork war banner I made. It would have been hanging outside had it not been pouring rain.

   Along with some of our other friends, Sam enjoys playing Warhammer 40k, especially Orks.  If I had to wager a guess, I’d say it’s more the attitude and less the gameplay that draws him to the green-skinned tide of destruction.

   For those of you not in the know, Warhammer 40k is a tabletop game played with miniature models of the different troops and vehicles.  You command your own army of miniatures, which you have lovingly assembled and painted, and march them across the table to victory or death.  Some games involve an objective but most are just a fight to the death. Combat is determined by a roll of the dice and he who rolls well wins.

   

   An Ork tank that I built and painted for Sam a few years ago.

   There are several different factions one can choose from when starting a Warhammer army.  There are the Space Marines, the insect like Tyranids, and the Chaos Daemons summoned from the great beyond to name but a few.  Sam plays Orks.  Orks are the greenest, fightingest, drinkingest army there is.  They believe that by painting a vehicle red, it will be able to move faster… and it works.  They speak with an over the top Cockney accent and any victory truly seems to come by luck rather than by ruthless military strategy.

   We had several small children in attendance, and for them I had made Grots Union t-shirts (Grots are little goblin-like creatures that the Orks use as slaves… and frequently ammunition). They were all members of Union Local 608, June 8th being Sam’s birthday.

   

   The Grots Union shirt, modeled here by Miss Ava.

   Because checkerboard patterns are a part of the Ork decoration, I was able to use some racing party supplies to augment the banner and pennants that I had made from scratch. The centerpiece of my Orky theme, however, was the cake.

   

   I’m not going to lie. I’m pretty proud of this one.  I’m not a huge fan of fondant, at least not from a taste standpoint, but I do enjoy using it. There are some things that buttercream and royal icing just won’t do. This time I also used the new Wilton icing sheets.  (I’ll do a whole separate post on that. Awesome new product!) By brushing the pieces of the icing sheet that I had cut out with metallic color dust, I was really able to get pieces that looked like metal. I found some fantastic candy rocks at a local shop. They’re actually very similar to M&Ms, just rock shaped. They looked great all piled together.

   

   One of the most exciting moments of the party for me was when people had to ask if the rocks and metal bits were edible. That was when I knew I had done a good job.

   For the interior, I decided to keep with the checkerboard theme using the Wilton Checkerboard Cake Pan Set. Instead of doing the traditional vanilla and chocolate checks, I opted to do the whole thing in vanilla, tinting half of the batter green. It was a pretty warm day when I baked, and the batter was a little runnier than I would have liked, so my checks were a little off kilter.  Fortunately, it fit right in with the Ork theme.

   

   Checkerboard cake

   All in all, it was a terrific party.  I wish the weather had been better, both on the day of the party and while I was trying to decorate the cake. I have even more admiration for my mother who made my birthday cake every year in the middle of July without air conditioning. (Thanks, Mom.) There are plenty more nerdly birthday celebrations on the horizon, and I’m sure many of them will include more nerdly baked goods.

   Category Food and Cooking, Holidays and Celebrations | Tags: 40k,birthday,cake,ork,party,warhammer | No Comments

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10. Rotini with Sausage and Mushrooms

    May 16, 2011 by Daniora

    

    Dried Porcini Mushrooms

    This is the recipe that introduced me to porcini mushrooms.  They come dried and have to be reconstituted with hot water.  They have a fairly strong earthy flavor.  I use them in meaty pasta sauces and in mushroom and spinach risotto.  If you really don’t care for the porcini, you can make this using only the button mushrooms, but the recipe has a far better flavor depth if they’re included.  Since using Italian sausage in pasta sauces is so popular, you can usually find it without the casings at the store.  If you do have to remove the casings, all you have to do is use a sharp knife to slit the casing open and turn out the interior.

    Rotini with Sausage and Mushrooms

    1 ounce dried Porcini Mushrooms
    1 cup hot water
    1 tbs butter
    1 large onion, finely chopped
    1 1/4 pounds Italian sausage, casings removed
    1 pound button mushrooms, sliced
    ½ tsp dry rosemary, crumbled
    ½ cup dry, white wine
    1 bay leaf
    1cup beef stock, or canned broth
    11/4 pounds rigatoni pasta
    1 cup half and half
    11/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese
    Salt and freshly ground pepper
    Chopped fresh Italian parsley
    Fresh rosemary sprigs
    Additional Parmesan cheese

    Rinse Porcini mushrooms. Place in small bowl. Pour 1 cup hot water over and let soak until softened, about 20 minuets. Drain porcini, reserving soaking liquid. Chop porcini, discarding hard stems. Set aside.

    Melt butter over medium heat in a heavy skillet. Add onion and cook until beginning to soften. Add sausage, increase heat to high and cook until just no longer pink, breaking up with a fork, about 6 minutes. Add fresh mushrooms and dried rosemary and stir until mushrooms begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add porcini and wine and bay leaf and boil until all liquid almost evaporates, about 4 minutes. Add stock and porcini soaking liquid, discarding any sand at the bottom of liquid. Simmer until sauce is syrupy, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes.

    Cook pasta and drain.

    Add half and half to sauce and boil until thickened slightly about 2 minutes. Add sauce and 1 1/2 cups of cheese to pasta and stir over low heat until coated. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to platter and sprinkle with parsley.

    Category Food and Cooking, Recipes | Tags: mushroom,pasta,recipe,sausage | 1 Comment

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